Working Mothers and Political Daughters: Intergenerational Dynamics of Women’s Political Representation

We study two intergenerational links between women’s economic and political empowerment. Our analysis compares labor market backgrounds of mothers and mothers-in-law for female and male politicians over 50 years (1973—2018) in Swedish data. The results support a strong intergenerational dynamic from mothers to daughters. Women politicians are more likely to have economically empowered mothers in terms of employment and income. This pattern is stronger for parliamentarians compared to local politicians, and stronger in the early decades of our sample period—the 1970s and 80s—when the proportion of elected women increased rapidly in the absence of gender quotas. We find no evidence of an intergenerational dynamic from mothers-in-laws to daughters-in-law. Possible explanations for this result include Sweden’s progressive gender norms and public childcare system, which reduce the husband’s role as an obstacle to women’s political participation.