The Women on High Courts Database

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon, Texas A&M University; Valerie J. Hoekstra, Arizona State University; Alice J. Kang, University of Nebraska Lincoln; Miki Caul Kittilson, Arizona State University

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Documentation and Codebook_v1.pdf	application/pdf	306.1 KB	05/19/2021 06:39:AM
WOHCv1.csv	text/csv	735.8 KB	05/14/2021 09:01:AM
WOHCv1.dta	application/x-stata-dta	1.7 MB	05/14/2021 08:52:AM
WOHCv1.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	352.5 KB	05/14/2021 08:50:AM

Project Citation:

Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C., Hoekstra, Valerie J., Kang, Alice J., and Kittilson, Miki Caul. The Women on High Courts Database. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-05-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/E135801V1

Project Description

Summary: This study provides over-time and cross-national data on women on high courts. The dataset includes information on the year the first woman was appointed and the gender composition of the high court. High courts include single peak courts as found in many common law countries and constitutional courts and highest appellate courts as found in many civil law countries. Information on the year of the first woman spans the period, 1945 to 2020. Data coverage on the number and percentage of women on high courts starts in 1970 or when the court is created, whichever comes first. Countries included have a population of 200,000 or greater. The data were compiled by the authors and their research teams drawing on a combination of secondary sources and information from countries' courts and judges.

Funding Sources: National Science Foundation. Law and Social Sciences Program (1323949); National Science Foundation. Law and Social Sciences Program (1323968); National Science Foundation. Law and Social Sciences Program (1324181)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: women; women's rights; courts; foreign courts; judges; judge selection; representation; sex discrimination; gender roles; gender; gender issues; judicial; judicial; foreign judicial systems; global; Supreme Court justices; constitutional court; supreme court; appellate courts; world

Geographic Coverage: global

Time Period(s): 1946 – 2020 (First woman: 1946-2020; Composition: 1970 or court creation-2013)

Collection Date(s): 2012 – 2020

Universe: Country high courts in independent countries with a population greater than 200,000.

Data Type(s): aggregate data; event/transaction data

Methodology

Sampling: The sample includes country high courts in sovereign countries with a population of 200,000 or greater (in 2010).

For the year the first woman was appointed, the sample includes 210 country high courts between 1946 and 2020.

The data on the number and percentage of women on high courts is an unbalanced cross-national time-series between 1970 and 2013. In Version 1.0 of our dataset, we have 5,675 observations for the number of women on high courts (63.2% coverage) and 5,655 observations on the percentage of women on high courts (63.0%).

For more information on the sample, please consult the Appendix 1 of Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C., Valerie J. Hoekstra, Alice J. Kang, and Miki Caul Kittilson. Reimagining the Judiciary: Women’s Representation on High Courts Worldwide. Oxford, UK.: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Data Source: The principal investigators and their teams compiled information from a variety of materials including secondary sources and primary sources on the presence of women on high courts (e.g., annual reports of the judiciary, commemorative studies celebrating the anniversary of a court, newspaper articles). For certain countries, the researchers contacted chief justices, court presidents, registrars, or ministers of justice for information on the gender composition of high courts.

Unit(s) of Observation: country high court

Geographic Unit: country

Related Publications

Download this project

Published Versions

V1 [2021-05-19]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

Report a Problem

Found a serious problem with the data, such as disclosure risk or copyrighted content? Let us know.

This material is distributed exactly as it arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.