Notice of Poll for the General Election 2021 – some stats around gender.

The formal notice of poll has now been issued for each constituency. I’ve done a quick gender breakdown, and comparison with the notice of poll for the last General Election in 2016.

Constituency	Total 2021	M/W 2021	Total 2016	M/W 2016
Arbory	4	4/0	7	6/1
Ayre	8	6/2	6	5/1
Douglas Cent	4	2/2	6	3/3
Douglas East	7	3/4	8	5/3
Douglas Nor	4	4/0	5	3/2
Douglas Sou	4	2/2	4	3/1
Garff	5	4/1	5	4/1
Glenfaba	7	6/1	3	3/0
Middle	5	3/2	4	4/0
Onchan	5	4/1	5	4/1
Ramsey	8	7/1	5	5/0
Rushen	4	3/1	5	5/0
TOTALS	65	48/17	63	50/13

Compared with the last General Election, nationally, a very similar number of candidates for the 24 seats, with a modestly higher proportion of women candidates (26% as opposed to 21%). Considering conversion from candidates to MHKs, the numbers are very small, and small changes in particular constituencies can have a big effect – for instance, if there had been a 42 vote swing in one constituency in  2011, 12.5% of the Keys would have been women, as opposed to the 8.33% who were elected (against 11% of candidates in that election being women). Nonetheless, the 2016 and 2011 elections had women candidates elected at very much the same rate as men. It will be interesting to see if something similar happens in September.

The elections are resolved in constituencies, rather than nationally, and so it is worth breaking those national figures down a little. The number of constituencies with no women standing has reduced substantially, from 4 to 2. In one constituency (Douglas East) there are more women than men standing. This is, perhaps surprisingly, not the first time this has happened in an election to the Keys. Marion Shimmin, the first woman MHK, was elected unopposed at a by-election in 1933 (so would be 0/1 on my table). In 2001 both candidates for the single seat in Peel were women (so would be 0/2 on my table). In two other Douglas constituencies there are the same number of men and women standing – Douglas Central (which was in this position in 2011) being joined by Douglas South. In both elections, there are 5 constituencies with only one woman on the ballot for the two seats.