Do young female candidates face double barriers or an outgroup advantage? The case of the European Parliament

Abstract

AbstractWhile intersectionality is a recurrent theme in the literature on women's political representation, few studies empirically disentangle who are the women who get elected to parliaments. An argument on biases in recruitment practices suggests that those who are members of more than one outgroup, such as young women, benefit from an ‘outgroup advantage’. In elections, a candidate with two outgroup features might attract more voter support than a candidate with just one outgroup feature. Hence, nominating a candidate that is both young and female could be a rational move by (male) elites in political parties that allows them to open fewer seats to newcomers. These expectations are tested on data for all members of the European Parliament since 1979. Not only is it found that women's presence increased steadily throughout the parliament's history, but also that women's representation is consistently highest among the group of young representatives, lower among middle‐aged Members of the European Parliament and lowest among older representatives.