How the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Policy Priorities of Legislators

That women in politics differ from their male counterparts in issue priorities has received substantial empirical support from a large body research. However, how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the policy priorities of women and men in legislatures received virtually no scholarly attention. We draw on socio-psychological theories of gendered socialization to argue that women and men in legislatures responded to changing policy agendas following the pandemic. Using an original dataset of over 1.5 million tweets sent by legislators in the US and the UK before and after the pandemic, we examine how the diversity in legislators’ issue focus changed after the pandemic and whether the effect of the pandemic on legislators’ issue priorities is differential across men and women. Our results have important implications for the study of gender and politics in general, and the substantive representation of women in particular.