Replication Data for: Representation Increases Women’s Influence in Climate Deliberations: Evidence from Community-Managed Forests in Malawi

Women's inclusion is now the norm in global and local initiatives to combat climate change. We examine how women's representation affects climate deliberations using the case of community-managed forests in Malawi. We run a lab-in-the-field experiment randomly varying the gender composition of six-member groups asked to deliberate on policies to combat local over-harvesting. We find that any given woman has relatively more influence in group deliberations when women make up a larger share of the group, a change driven by men's assessments of women's influence. Women's presence also shifts the content of deliberations towards prospective solutions for which women have socially recognized expertise (cooking and replanting). Despite these changes, women and men do not prefer different deforestation policies, and women's presence does not meaningfully affect group decisions. Our work demonstrates how women's presence shapes climate deliberations but also calls into question claims that women's inclusion will necessarily affect climate decisions. This dataset underwent an independent verification process, complying with the AJPS Verification Policy updated June 2023, which replicated the tables and figures in the primary article. For the supplementary materials, verification was performed solely for the successful execution of the code. The verification process was carried out by the Cornell Center for Social Sciences at Cornell University.
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