Why do they leave? Understanding reasons for exiting politics in a gendered perspective

Current research shows that women are not just (still) underrepresented in legislative assemblies, but also have shorter tenure than their male counterparts. This paper therefore explores gendered patterns in reasons for exiting politics. Only by disentangling why women and men politicians leave their seats, can we come closer to a full understanding of why there is a persistent gender gap among the most powerful figures in contemporary parliaments: the seniors. Theoretically, the paper outlines that politicians are driven towards exit by either personal reasons, covering aspects relating to child-care responsibilities and low motivation, or political reasons, such as lack of policy influence and dissatisfaction with the party group, or both. The main argument is that men primarily exit politics due to personal issues, while women do so based on a combination of both personal and political reasons. Empirically, the paper relies on the Norwegian Representative Panel, having surveyed over 500 former politicians, mainly on local level, in the autumn of 2023. The analyses enrich the existing literature by pointing to how men and women weigh personal and political reasons for exit differently, paving the way for developing concrete policy measures to remedy representative gender gaps in contemporary legislative assemblies.