About the prize
The Federal Statistical Office of Germany's 'Statistical Science for Society' prize for young scientists is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding scientific work closely related to official statistics based on a recommendation by an independent panel of experts. In addition to the prize, the winners are also given the opportunity to publish an article about their work in ‘Wirtschaft und Statistik’ (WISTA), an academic journal published by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany.
Women increase voter turnout in local politics
Simon Stocker received the prize for his master's thesis "Women in local politics and local voter turnout: a case for descriptive representation?" His thesis examines the question as to whether voter turnout at the local level is influenced by the presence of mayoresses and women in local councils and concludes that the presence of women in local political positions has a positive effect on voter turnout in local council elections.
The extensive data analysis he presents demonstrates that voter turnout in local council elections in municipalities with a female mayor is 0.8 percentage points higher on average than in municipalities led by male mayors. This effect, he explains, is more evident in municipalities in which the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and Die Linke parties achieved a particularly high share of votes cast in the Bundestag elections.
About Simon Stocker
Simon Stocker studied Social Sciences (BA) and Empirical Political and Social Research (MA) at the University of Stuttgart and has been an academic assistant and PhD candidate at the Department of Political Theory and Empirical Democracy Research at the Institute of Social Sciences since 2022.
He also published an article based on his Master's thesis in the prestigious journal "Politische Vierteljahresschrift".