The More the Merrier? How Women’s Substantive Representation Changes in the Light of Increased Presence.

Linked to growing numbers of women in parliaments worldwide is the argument that the presence of female politicians – descriptive representation – bears the potential to transform the political agenda towards more gender sensitivity – substantive representation. As female representatives voice women’s concerns, all legislators become progressively considerate towards gendered policy preferences. While this argument implies that men also pick up traditional women’s issue as time passes and the share of female office-holders increases, existing research mostly investigates short time horizons and it thus incapable to provide insights into change. How does the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation evolve over time? To answer this question, this paper studies the content of parliamentary questions of female and male representatives in the German state of Rhineland-Palatine from 1949 to 2017. Using quantitative content analysis and representative claim analysis, this paper is the first one to combine the two mainstream approaches to measuring substantive representation.