Social Inequalities and Biased Decisions: Descriptive and Substantive Representation from an Intersectional Perspective

Political decisions in many rich democracies are biased towards the preferences of higher social classes. One oft-discussed mechanism behind this finding is the descriptive underrepresentation of working-class people in contemporary parliaments. However, scholars of political responsiveness have not been able to systematically test whether the unequal composition of parliaments is a driving force behind these findings. Moreover, this scholarship has mostly focused on class inequalities alone, ignoring potential intersections with gender inequalities. This article addresses these research gaps by examining how the link between preferences and policy decisions is moderated by the social background of legislators, focusing on men and women from different social classes. Using original data for Germany that combine information on public opinion on policy proposals, policy decisions, and the social composition of parliament from 1980 to 2020, we show that the preferences of the female working class are least represented in parliamentary decisions, while the responsiveness of men from higher social classes is strongest. Bringing together the normative theory of descriptive representation with the empirical study of responsiveness, we show that the degree to which the policy preferences of different social groups are translated into policy decisions depends on the descriptive representation of the group.