We have created an "Index of Women-Friendliness," which calculates the probability of electing a woman in each of the 435 US House districts during a given ten-year redistricting cycle.  Our data begin in 1956, so there are probabilities for each district for 1956-60, 1962-70, 1972-80, 1982-90, 1992-2000 and 2002-10.  The probabilities are created using a logit analysis on 12 demographic variables commonly used to predict partisan outcomes in House elections available from the US Census:  Republican share of the presidential vote, district size in square miles, whether the district is in the South, median income, and the percentage of urban residents, black residents, Hispanic residents, foreign-born residents, blue-collar workers, residents with college degrees, married women, and those in the district who are school age   For more detailed information about these measures and their sources, see chapter 7 in our book.  We are currently working on updating our data for the new redistricting cycle that began in 2012.

Researchers and practitioners are welcomed and encouraged to use our women-friendly district data. If you do download our data, please let us know.  We would love to hear about your research!  Contact Professor Simon at dsimon@mail.smu.edu or Professor Palmer at bpalmer@bw.edu.