What Explains the Post-Quota Gender Gap in National Parliaments? On Gendered Career Opportunities in Multi-Level Austria

This article examines the persisting gender gap in the Austrian national parliament after the introduction of voluntary gender quotas at the party level (‘post-quota gender gap’). The pre-parliamentary careers of 703 members of parliament (Nationalratsabgeordnete) were studied using social sequence analysis to understand the career opportunities of men and women running for a legislative mandate. The findings highlight how the gap mostly stems from a gender skew on local career pathways to parliament. The career transitions from local politics to the national parliament are especially male-dominated in parties with bottom-up candidate selection procedures. Overall, the case study highlights a vicious link in a federal state architecture: In Austria, with its nine states and over two thousand cities and municipalities, the gender gap at the local level significantly plays out at the national level