Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article focuses on working and living conditions among local politicians in Sweden and their experiences with combining political work and family life. Applying a sociological perspective on representation, we first map the working and living conditions among politicians, with a specific focus on gender and age. We then examine experiences of work-family conflict and subjective well-being and investigate how these outcomes are related to gender, age, and working and living conditions. The main findings show significant gender differences in working and living conditions, with substantially higher levels of work-family conflict among young women politicians.
Highlights
Equal access for citizens to participate in politics is central to the functioning of a representative democracy
Which dominant patterns of working and living conditions can be identified among local politicians? In order to answer this question, we use an explorative approach in which the number of latent clusters is gradually increased in order to identify the number of latent clusters represented in the data
We argued that a sociological perspective focusing on processes related to gender and age can provide novel insights into group differences in politicians’ work and family demands
Summary
Equal access for citizens to participate in politics is central to the functioning of a representative democracy. Various arguments have been put forth by political scientists as to why social or descriptive representation matters. Descriptive representation has been linked to substantive representation in many empirical studies; for example, the presence of women in parliaments has been shown to have a tangible effect on political outcomes (Celis 2006; Wängnerud 2009, 2015; Wängnerud and Sundell 2012), even though some scholars argue that it is problematic to view women as a homogeneous group with common interests (Celis 2013). The underrepresentation of specific social groups in politics, not least women, is an enduring phenomenon in most countries. After the 2014 election, the overall proportion of women in the Swedish national parliament and in municipal councils amounted to more
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