Are Gender Quotas on Candidates Bound to be Ineffective?

This article studies the short- and long-term effectiveness of gender quotas applied to candidates in elections based on single-member districts. I exploit the introduction of gender quotas in the French parliamentary elections in 1997 and 2002. Using election data from 1978 to 2017 and a difference-in-differences strategy, I show that the main political parties all reacted by nominating women in less winnable districts in the short term but these strategies gradually disappear for the left-wing party while they persist up to 15 years later for the right-wing party. I argue that these nomination patterns are partly explained by the persistence of incumbents and the inexperience of new female candidates as well as different compliance levels by the main parties.