Working in parliament as gendered stepping stone to become an MP: Politically engaged women staffers rather work behind the scenes than run for elected office

Men remain overrepresented in most European parliamentary democracies which is partly due to the gendered supply of candidates running for elected office. Although research shows that women are increasingly active in politics this increased engagement has not translated into proportional representation. Notably, women and men are equally represented among political staffers in most parliamentary democracies, yet men MPs are more likely to have had a pre-parliamentary career as staffers. Parliament as a workplace for personal staffers is the ideal training ground for future politicians as they can learn to navigate politics in the background before stepping into public office. To explore why women who work as political staffers are less likely than their men counterparts to become MPs, this study proposes and tests three potential gendered factors: (1) differences in communal versus agentic motivations for political work, (2) women's aversion to competition, and (3) the impact of witnessing harassment toward elected MPs on political ambition. For this purpose, I collect original survey data among personal staffers in Germany, Austria, Poland and the UK. The results show that---. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the barriers that discourage politically active women from running for office, which is vital for addressing gender disparities in political representation.