The Causes of Female Legislative Turnover in Western Europe 1945-2015: Do Explanations of Turnover Differ by Gender?

The paper explores the causes of female legislative turnover. Female turnover refers to the number of new female legislators, expressed as a proportion of the total number of members of parliament (MPs) who enter the legislature after general elections. Do explanations of female turnover differ than those of male turnover? And what can we learn about the determinants of total legislative turnover through the study of its gender dimension? In order to answer the above stated questions the paper brings together a unique longitudinal dataset on total legislative and gender turnover in eight European unicameral or lower chambers in the period from 1945 to 2015. The analytical framework combines legislative turnover theory with the insights of female representation research. In terms of variables, it comprises original information on MP remuneration with existing data on strength of bicameralism, regional authority, duration of legislative term, party ideology, diffusion of gender quotas, electoral volatility, district magnitude and strength of personal vote. The paper confirms a series of findings from earlier work on turnover, but also provides novel insights on the differences between explanations of female and male turnover, which have not been shown in a comparative setting before.