That dropbox link requires a dropbox account to access. nvm the article appeared after I closed the box asking me to register.
It's interesting, that paper because where women's spots are reserved the public expenditures more closely resemble the local women's concerns. Which is kind of the obvious conclusion. But it's pretty varied since women in one area might care about a topic that's of more interest to men in another area. So you get the same thing either being funded or defunded when you bring more women into the council depending on local opinions.
And more representation from women may or may not even push women's rights. I'm guessing Indian women who get ahead politically would be relatively affluent, and more likely to be conservative. Add to that, the fact that women are consistently (on average) more religious than men, and
on a lot of polls, women are more likely to be Pro-Life than men are. So if you just put more women into decision-making roles without any other criteria you might even end up with more anti-abortion laws passing.
These are UK polling figures however the difference is clear:
In the 2011 YouGov poll 28% of men supported a reduction (in the legal abortion term), 46% of women did. In the 2012 YouGov poll 24% of men supported a reduction, 49% of women did. In the Angus Reid poll 35% of men supported a reduction in the limit, 59% of women did. In the ICM poll 45% of men supported a reduction to 20 weeks, 59% of women did.”
So it's not just a small difference: in some UK polls women were twice as likely to support a reduction in abortion rights, and more women in parliament would likely push the percentage over 50%, meaning it could actually pass. So, no, adding more women doesn't automatically mean awesome liberal women's rights improvements. In America the gender differences aren't generally so big, but
21% of women want a complete ban vs 16% of men, which is a pretty significant difference.