Yue Hou, Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Hou, and her research collaborators, Xinrui Feng and Mingxi Liu, present one of the first studies of the political behavior of female members of China's national legislature - the National People's Congress (NPC). Female legislators have consistently held about 20% of seats in the NPC in the past two decades because of a gender quota, but they sponsor about 44% of all legislative bills and more than half of bills relevant to women's rights and interests in the 12th NPC. Among sponsors, women on average sponsor more bills (4.8 bills) than men (3.1 bills). They propose three potential mechanisms that drive women's comparative productiveness.