Women’s substantive representation and gender mainstreaming in the EU pandemic recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic evidences how policy responses moderate the gendered impact of crises. The paper investigates if and under which conditions the EU response to the pandemic promoted gender-sensitive recovery policies. Next Generation EU entails common funding and priorities, including gender mainstreaming. Yet, the plans are designed at the national level. The study exploits this governance framework for comparative cross-country analysis. A mixed-method approach leverages quantitative text analysis — revealing heterogeneous saliency of gender equality — for the selection of critical case studies. Italy and Spain are Southern countries among the largest recipients of the funds with persistent economic gender gaps differing in progress in women’s political empowerment. The analysis assesses whether and how the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming within the multilevel governance framework of the EU is moderated domestically by women’s representation. It thus examines whether women's substantive representation extends beyond parliamentary debates to (fiscal) policy outcomes in the case of the COVID-19 crisis and the National Recovery and Response Plans. The research design complements secondary data and social network analysis with elite interviews. The analysis contributes to understanding the politics and policies of gender mainstreaming in the pandemic recovery in Southern Europe. More broadly, it contributes to the gendered assessment of the distributive implications of EU crisis responses and substantive representation in fiscal policy-making.