Eugenio Salvati, Pamela Pansardi, Andrea Cassani “Female leadership in the European Parliament” EPSA 2023
Women’s parliamentary presence has significantly increased worldwide, but has not been matched by a comparable increase in their access to positions of leadership within main political institutions. While important steps have been taken at the EU level, where three of the main institutions are currently chaired by a woman, only five of the EU27 states currently have a female chief executive, and the average rate of female ministers in national governments remains below 30%. The European Parliament is a perfect example of this paradox: with a 42% of female MEPs it scores quite high comparatively in terms of women’s representation. Yet, with the exception of the President, women are still quite rare in senior leadership positions. Few studies have specifically investigated the obstacles that prevent female politicians to access higher political offices in condition of a critical mass. To contribute filling this gap, this paper investigates the gendered dimension of political careers in a multilevel perspective by taking into account both the structural and individual-level factors that hinders female politicians’ access to positions of leadership in the EP.