Gender Dynamics of the Parliamentary Service in Ghana

Studies on gender and African legislatures have focused primarily on identifying the factors that contribute to greater representation of women in legislatures (Hughes and Tripp 2015; Yoon 2001; 2004) or on the experiences of members of parliament (MPs) (Bauer and Britton 2006; Tamale 1999). There has been relatively little scholarly attention on parliamentary staff and the gender dynamics of parliamentary administration. Particularly in contexts like Ghana where MPs’ turnover rates are high, parliamentary staff play a critical role in providing MPs with the expertise and capacity to fulfill their law-making, oversight, and budgeting roles (Christiansen et al. 2021). Understanding the experience of parliamentary staff is also critical for gender research by framing legislatures as workplaces and centering those who often have less formal power (Berthet et al. 2023). This paper draws on feminist institutionalism to examine the gender dynamics of the parliamentary service in Ghana. Through semi-structured interviews with members of the parliamentary service and a survey of parliamentary staff, the paper identifies the characteristics of staff members (e.g., in terms of educational and professional qualifications, career trajectories, gender, age, and length of service) and examines how these characteristics differ by type of appointment (e.g., permanent staff vs. limited-term research assistants) and area of focus (e.g., research, Hansard, library, or public affairs departments). It asks: how are relationships within the parliamentary service gendered, and how do these gender dynamics affect staff members’ interactions with MPs and the functioning of parliament? The study advances our knowledge of an understudied aspect of African legislatures by providing a fuller picture of a key representative institution.