Ämbetet: Kvinnans bästa vän? : En statistisk undersökning om vikten av ämbetsinnehav för kvinnors möjlighet att bli invalda i kommunfullmäktige.

In 2021 Sweden got its first female prime minister, 102 years after women first were given the right to vote. Given the big focus on equality that has been a political trademark for the country for years, this milestone seems to have been passed quite late, which poses the question of how Sweden is doing in regard to equality. This paper investigates the possibility for women to be elected to municipality council in 2018, with focus on the importance of incumbency. Based on the power shield-hypothesis saying that incumbency increases the chances for a woman to be elected more than it does for a man, the effect of gender and incumbency on the probability of being elected to municipal council for 20 Swedish municipalities is investigated. Using a logistic model, the joint effect of being a woman and incumbent cannot be found on the probability of being elected to municipal council in the 2018 election. Tests of the importance of incumbency for women and men show that incumbency is very important for both genders, and no extreme effect can be found for either gender. The paper rejects the power shield-hypothesis for the Swedish municipality council-election of 2018