A Gender-Generation Gap in Political Representation? The Impact of Preferential Voting in Norwegian Municipal Elections

The article looks into gender balance in municipal councils in ‘one of the most gender equal countries in the world’: Norway. We aim to bring a new perspective to this field of research, by including a gender-generation approach. In addition, we analyse the impact of the intra-state context (municipal size) and ballot structure (open lists). First, we take Norris’ concept of a ‘gender-generation gap’ as the starting point: Is there a gender-generation gap in political representation, i.e. does the gender gap vary between generations? Second, despite high gender equality scores at the national level, Norway is also among the countries with the highest intra-state variation in local gender representation in Europe. Therefore, we ask: Does a potential gender-generation gap in Norwegian local councils depend on municipal size? Third, the article sheds light on the mechanisms by which a potential gender-generation gap arises by asking: What is the impact of preferential votes on gender-generation representation? In order to analyse representation of men and women in different generations and in municipalities of different size, we use a complete data set with all candidates (58093) for the 2015 Norwegian municipal elections. These data also enable us to compare actual representation with a hypothetical closed-list outcome (elected candidates if preferential votes had not counted, and list position alone had been decisive). The analyses clearly show that political representation in local councils is not just gendered (more men than women are elected) but characterized by a gender-generation gap. Older women are underrepresented, while young women are represented on equal terms with young men. Moreover, this gender-generation gap depends on municipal size and so does the impact of the open-list system. Indeed, young female candidates benefit from preferential voting in larger municipalities, whereas the older generation of women is harmed in both large and small municipalities.