Parents in Parliament: ‘Where's Mum?’

Abstract

AbstractThere has been extensive consideration of women's under‐representation in the UK parliament. Here we are interested not only in the question of sex and political representation, but in parenthood too: in short, whether national politics is closed to women, and possibly men, with young children. We start with a review of the academic literature on legislative recruitment to see what it has to say about mothers—almost nothing has been written about fathers. Based on a 2013 survey of UK MPs—men and women—we then identify key features of parents' presence at Westminster. For the first time, we can be sure that mothers are in fact significantly under‐represented in the House of Commons. We then consider whether arguments made to support the descriptive representation of women have purchase for mothers. Finally we consider how political institutions might be reconfigured not to be merely woman or even mother‐friendly, but to be care‐friendly.