How Parliaments Reflect the Policy Preferences of Poor and Rich Women

An increasing set of contributions studies the extent to which women’s preferences are represented in parliament and recently finds that female citizens’ positions are equally well or even better reflected by parliaments than those of men. However, these studies ignore that income shapes the preferences of women and rather treat them as a homogenous group with similar preferences. To account for this gap, this paper addresses the following research questions: How do parliaments mirror the policy preferences of women with different income status and what explains different levels of congruence? To answer this question, we compare the policy preferences of women and parliaments in six policy areas in twenty-four European democracies based on data from the European Value Study to those of MPs based on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. We expect that MPs represent the preferences of the group that turns out in highest numbers and that is numerically strongest within parliament most accurately. Beyond, if elites are considerably more liberal than citizens are, the more leftist preferences of high-income women should be better mirrored by elected legislatures.