The Gendered Division of Labor in Assignments to Political Committees: Discrimination or Self-Selection in Danish Local Politics?

Abstract

T he literature on the descriptive representation of women in parliaments is voluminous, and most studies focus on different levels of women's representation across legislatures (e.g.women in parliaments is counted across the globe, and explanations as to what facilitates and hinders the election of female politicians are sought. At a macro level, PR systems, high district magnitudes, and, of course, gender quotas are some of the institutional mechanisms that have been identified as advantageous for women's ambitions to conquer seats in legislatures. These aspects of the electoral system have also drawn We thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for helpful advice. We also benefitted from discussions at the 2011 ECPR Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, where an earlier version of the paper was presented.

Within‐party Allocation of Committee Seats: Evidence from Danish Local Elections

“…Previous research has shown that women are underrepresented in senior positions in local government (see, e.g., Yule ; Ryan et al. ; Baekgaard & Kjær ). Age and city council seniority (both measured in years) very likely correlate with party seniority and should therefore be controlled for in order to account for potential spurious effects of party seniority.…”

“…Moreover, they are included because there are theoretical reasons to believe that they, at least to some extent, correlate with the dependent variables as well as some of the explanatory variables. Previous research has shown that women are underrepresented in senior positions in local government (see, e.g., Yule 2000; Ryan et al 2005;Baekgaard & Kjaer 2012). Age and city council seniority (both measured in years) very likely correlate with party seniority and should therefore be controlled for in order to account for potential spurious effects of party seniority.…”

Who Gets What? The Interactive Effect of MPs’ Sex in Committee Assignments in Portugal

“…The usefulness of this important framework is however limited when the research centres on the role of MPs' sex in committee appointments. The flourishing research on this topic has focused on two key questions (Baekgaard and Kjaer, 2012).…”

“…Self-selection to certain committees is mainly important in the case of the USA, but also cannot be ignored in settings where political parties play a more determinant role. It has been often argued that party leaders take MPs' individual preferences into account when appointing them to legislative committees (Thomas, 1994;Leston-Bandeira, 2004, p. 44;Carroll, 2008;Schwindt-Bayer, 2010;Baekgaard and Kjaer, 2012;Raymond and Holt, 2019;Whitaker, 2018); one cited exception is Ireland, where MPs are usually not requested to express their preferences (Mickler, 2018b). Although the preferred committees of female and male MPs tend to be different (Baekgaard and Kjaer, 2012), women legislators are not more likely to be dissatisfied with their committee appointment (Carroll, 2008, p. 148).…”

“…Therefore, the second objective of this article is to explore whether these individual level factors are equally relevant for the committee assignments of women and men. 1 Although a consistent body of research suggests there is a bias against female candidates in committee appointments (Thomas, 1994;Towns, 2003;Diaz, 2005;Heath et al, 2005;Schwindt-Bayer, 2010), more recent scholarship has shown signs of change (Baekgaard and Kjaer, 2012;O'Brien, 2012;Kerevel and Atkeson, 2013; Barnes, 2014). This study contributes to this debate by examining committee assignments in Portugal, which is a relevant case study for four reasons.…”