Representing Parenthood in Local Politics: Politicians’ Attitudes Toward Parenthood Accommodations

Despite assumptions that local politics are more “women friendly,” men continue to be over-represented in most municipal councils. Scholars seeking to explain the persistence of gender gaps in political representation argue that the rules and infrastructure in elected assemblies are not particularly welcoming to those with caring responsibilities. Because women still perform a larger share of caring tasks than men, equality advocates have called for reforms to facilitate greater balance among representative and caretaking roles. Such “family friendly” reforms involve things like offering parental leave to politicians, creating childcare and breastfeeding spaces for new mothers, and allowing politicians to participate and vote remotely while on parental leave. In this paper, we examine political elites’ attitudes toward parenthood accommodations with a survey of municipal politicians in Canada. The survey includes questions about politicians’ age, gender, race, and family status (including the age categories of their children), questions about their ideology and the type of community they represent, as well as questions about their support for things like parental leave for municipal politicians, allowing breastfeeding in council meetings, childcare provision, and allowing remote voting for those on parental leave. Data from the survey allow us to assess what kind of support there is overall for family-friendly reforms but also what individual and council-level factors might affect politicians’ support for accommodating politicians with small children. The findings of the paper contribute to knowledge about the opportunities and constraints to reforming representative institutions in ways that make them more accessible to women, and mothers in particular.