MDFS::Docs.Sheffield.Election.2004.Analysis/htm

Balance Analysis of the 2004 Sheffield Elections

Gender Balance

The following table shows the gender balance of candidates for election to Sheffield City Council on 10th June 2004.

	Population	LibDem	Labour	Conservative	Green	Others	All Candidates	All Elected
Male candidates	48%	58 - 69%	58 - 69%	61 - 73%	19 - 51%	9 - 69%	205 - 68%
Males elected	48%	26 - 70%	27 - 61%	1 - 50%	0 - 0%	0 - 0%		54 - 64%
Female candidates	52%	26 - 31%	26 - 31%	23 - 27%	18 - 49%	4 - 31%	97 - 32%
Females elected	52%	11 - 30%	17 - 39%	1 - 50%	1 - 100%	0 - 0%		30 - 36%
TOTAL candidates		84 - 100%	84 - 100%	84 - 100%	37 - 100%	13 - 100%	303 - 100%	84 - 100%
TOTAL elected		37 - 44%	44 - 52%	2 - 2%	1 - 3%	0 - 0%	0 - 0%	0 - 0%

As can be seen, only the Green Party managed to put together a slate of candidates whose gender balance matched that of the population as a whole, with almost the same number of males and females. The three larger parties, as is usual in politics, had a majority of male candidates. Labour and the Liberal Democrats had a 2:1 bias towards male candidates, and the Conservatives a 3:1 male bias. The Conservative Party have historically lagged behind other main parties in their candidates' gender balance, but the Sheffield Local Election candidates were a better balance than recently [1]. Interestingly, Labour and the Liberal Democrats happened to have exactly the same number of male and female candidates, and ended up with almost exactly the same number of male candidates elected.

Although the gender balance of candidate who stood for election does not match that of the population as a whole, the balance of those actually elected broadly matches the balance of those who stood for election. That is, those elected matches the balance of the pool they were selected from, with 68% of candidates being male and 64% of those elected being male. Indeed, the balance of those elected is closer to the population as a whole than the balance of candidates.

The gender balance of the Labour and Conservative parties' elected members better reflects the gender balance of the population as a whole than their candidates did. Labour's candidiates were 69% male, and their elected members are 61% male. The Conservatives' candidates were 73% male and their elected members are perfectly balanced at 50%:50%. This is mainly a statistical fluke as only two Conservative canadidates were elected - one male and one female.

Only the gender balance of the Liberal Democrats' elected members matches the balance of their candidates with no movement towards the balance of the population as a whole.

Ethnicity Balance

The following table shows the ethnic balance of candidates for election to Sheffield City Council on 10th June 2004.

	Population	LibDem	Labour	Conservative	Green	Others	All Candidates	All Elected
Ethnic minorites, candidates	7%	8 - 9%	10 - 12%	2 - 2%	1 - 1%	0 - 0%	21 - 7%
Ethnic minorities, elected	7%	3 - 8% of 37	3 - 7% of 44	0 - 0%	0 - 0%	0 - 0%		6 - 7%

As can be seen, both the Liberal Democrats and Labour had a higher proportion of ethnic minority candidates than in the population as a whole. The Conservatives are trailing behind at 2% as they have always done historically, and are slightly worse in 2004 than in recent years [2].

The ethnicity balance of the candidates as a whole and of the members elected to the council reflects exactly the ethnicity balance of Sheffield's population as a whole. This is encouraging as it could be showing that ethnic background is, in general, an irrelevance to whether a person becomes interested in standing for election, and to whether people get elected. However, this should not mask the fact that individual candidates' election results can still, unfortunately, be skewed by their ethnic background.

The ethnicity balance is in stark contract to the gender balance of candidates and elected members. While the mix of people elected matches the mix of people who stand for election, there is still an overwhelming male dominance of people who put themselves forward for election.

Leadership positions

	Male	Female
Sheffield Population	48%	52%
Full Council	54 - 64%	30 - 36%
Labour Group	27 - 61%	17 - 39%
Labour Cabinet members	13 - 59%	9 - 41%
LibDem Group	26 - 70%	11 - 30%
LibDem Shadow Cabinet members	7 - 70%	3 - 30%

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet exactly matches the balance of their group. However, the Shadow Cabinet is only ten members, and so it would only take a change of two members for the gender balance to exactly match that of the Sheffield population as a whole.

The Labour Cabinet's balance is very slightly closer to the Sheffield population as a whole than the balance of their group.

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Authored by J.G.Harston - Last update: 30-Jun-2004