Kuntavaaliehdokkaiden suhtautuminen sukupuolten tasa-arvoon

Onko naisten poliittisella edustuksella väliä?

Authors

• Josefina Sipinen Tampereen yliopisto
• Åsa von Schoultz Helsingin yliopisto
• Marianne Pekola-Sjöblom Kuntaliitto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37452/politiikka.120472

Keywords:

gender equality, attitudes, politicians, municipalities

Abstract

This study investigates how views on gender equality have developed over the last 20 years and how the presence of women in local politics shapes views on gender equality among men and women municipal election candidates. Views on both women’s descriptive and substantive representation are analysed, the former comprising of attitudes towards the necessity of gender quotas and the latter of attitudes towards the attention that questions on gender equality have received in local decision-making. The empirical analyses are based on surveys for municipal election candidates in 2021 and 2000. The results show that women and men candidates’ views on gender equality differ remarkably. Women candidates consider gender equality a much more important issue in comparison to men candidates. Over the past 20 years, views on gender equality have however become more progressive mainly because men have adopted more positive attitudes. Results also show that when the presence of women in local politics increases the emphasis on the importance of women’s descriptive representation slightly decreases. This applies to both women and men candidates, although differences between the sexes remain.