The legislature as a gendered workplace: Exploring members of parliament’s experiences of working in the Swedish parliament

Abstract

Do men and women legislators have equal opportunities to carry out their parliamentary duties? An important first step to uncover the parliament’s inner life is to evaluate members of parliament’s (MPs) experiences of their work environment. In this article, we explore the Swedish parliament where women have held over 40% of the seats for two decades to test the persistence of gendered norms and practices. Using a new survey dataset of 279 Swedish MPs (82% response rate), we find that female MPs experience greater pressure, higher levels of anxiety, and are subject to more negative treatment than male MPs. Yet, while men and women report participating in debates and influencing their political party’s agenda to the same degree, we conclude that the Parliament’s working environment remains gendered in that women pay a higher personal cost for their political engagement.