It is often believed that political careers begin early and that youth party organizations are one of the first steps in the political career pipeline in European political parties. Yet, the role that these organizations play in the start of political careers has received relatively little investigation from representation and political party scholars. Additionally, gender and politics scholarship has suggested that early career opportunities, like those that youth organizations can foster, are often gendered, where young men tend to benefit from homosocial capital through intra-party networks (Bjarnegard 2013). Building on this scholarship with the hopes of contributing to our knowledge about early political career pipelines and gendered political capital, in this paper, I draw on unique survey and interview data from across 23 youth party associations in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden to determine the extent to which young party members build inter- and intra-generational networks and the extent to which this can impact career aspirations and outcomes. As such, I focus on extending methods derived from political networks to focus on early career networks where gender and age are identified as key network membership characteristics. Preliminary findings suggest that young women and young men differ in the networks they build, where young women tend to have more heterogenous networks than their male counterparts, but that this does not necessarily lead to greater representation aspirations and outcomes. I also find that in Scandinavia, women’s organizations and young women in youth organizations tend to have little overlap, suggesting potential gaps in opportunities for young women to build potentially important relationships.
