Women are being appointed to presidential cabinets in increasing numbers and to a greater diversity of posts. How do these women compare to the men in terms of their skills, experiences and connections? Do they bring new perspectives or are they “men in skirts”? The expectation of social control theory is that when new groups get incorporated, the people brought in will differ only on the obvious group trait, meaning that while their sex is different their resumes should be the same. Alternatively, if there is gender desegregation, rather than gender integration, women may remain marginalized in the cabinet because their credentials may be irrelevant to their post or they may lack an independent power base. This comparative empirical paper examines the backgrounds and qualifications of 447 ministers from 16 presidential administrations in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the United States. We begin by first summarizing our findings about the backgrounds, group links and political connections of cabinet ministers and empirically assess – using a difference of means tests – whether there are systematic differences in the experience, connections, and skills of male and female ministers. We check whether these differences persist across portfolios, countries, time, and initial vs. replacement ministers. We also assess – somewhat more qualitatively - the apparent “resume requirements” of portfolios where appointment of women has become common and explore if a “female norm” or possibly a “gender neutral norm” is developing. In addition, we use qualitative analysis to examine the first women appointed to a particular portfolio in our dataset.
