The Relationship Between Personality Traits, Policy Positions and the Prioritization of Women’s Issues

Previous research typically assumes a link between the descriptive and substantive representation of women, implying that female politicians are seen as the primary actors in representing women’s interests. However, what role do male politicians play in women’s substantive representation? This study investigates the determinants affecting male politicians’ attitudes and preferences towards women’s issues. In particular, we analyze whether various personality traits of male politicians are associated with their policy position on women’s issues as well as their prioritization of this policy domain. Based on previous psychological research on the Big Five traits (i.e. Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism), we theoretically expect male politicians who are open to new experiences to take more liberal positions on social policies and therefore be more likely to support and prioritize women’s issues. In contrast, conscientious men rather tend to adopt more conservative policy positions and consequently will not pay much attention to women’s interests. Using original data from a comparative survey of elite politicians in Germany and Switzerland, our results show that male politicians with different personality traits differ significantly in terms of their position and priority on women’s issues. These findings contribute to the study of women’s representation as well as to the booming literature on the effect of personality traits on politicians’ self-reported policy positions and preferences.