Gendered Patterns of Access and Length of Tenure in Party Office

Holding party office is key for building a political career as it gives access to both significant expressive and instrumental resources. Recent works have found that this political capital asset has a heterogeneous effect across gender on the likelihood of being appointed or selected for a variety of public offices since it is mostly relevant for men’s political advancement. This article investigates the micro-foundations of such a comparative disadvantage for women politicians and the insider-outsider dynamics it yields. More specifically, we look at the individual and organisational determinants shaping both women’s presence in political parties’ national – i.e. central – executive committees (NEC) and their length of tenure in this office. The empirical analysis builds on a novel dataset on the composition and election of NECs of all significant Spanish political parties in the period 1975-2020, including the major statewide and non-statewide parties. Our results shed new light on why and how women party officeholders remain outsiders on the inside.