Welfare State and Representation: Do Women Make the Welfare State or Does the Welfare State Make Women Representatives?

Abstract

The relationship between welfare states and women's representation in parliaments has been of great interest to scholars. However, different strands of the literature on gender and political representation suggest opposing directions of causality. On the one hand it is argued that a rise in welfare spending increases women's representation in parliaments, but on the other hand, more women in parliaments is said to expand welfare spending. This paper analyses the problem empirically and finds that the lagged values of women's parliamentary representation are better predictors of welfare spending than the lagged values of spending are of women's per cent in parliaments. In other words, women make the welfare state and welfare spending does not make female representatives.