 |
This article investigates whether female legislators defend the interests of women more than their male counterparts. I combine quasi-experimental variations to randomize legislators' gender and text analysis to identify women-related policies among more than 300,000 amendments discussed in the French Parliament during the 2001-2017 period. First, I exploit mixed-gender close races in the Lower House to show that female legislators are twice more likely to initiate women-related amendments. Second, as compared to other topics, I establish that women's issues constitute the key topic on which women are more active relatively to men, followed by health and child issues. At the other end of the spectrum, men are more involved in military issues. Third, I investigate the mechanisms and provide evidence that the activity of female legislators cannot be entirely explained by constituents' preferences or political parties' strategies but stems from individual interest of legislators. Fourth, I replicate these findings in the Upper House using a difference-in-differences strategy that directly exploits the introduction of a gender quota. I obtain similar results.
