MÄN SOM REPRESENTERAR KVINNOR? En studie om mäns kvinnoorienterade motioner i Sveriges riksdag under 1970-2020

Abstract

Female politicians have concern for women’s interests, but do men male politicians have concern for women’s interests? And what happens with this concern as the number of women in parliament increases? This study is about men’s representation of women’s interests in the Swedish Riksdag during 1970-2020. In this particular study, men’s representation of women’s interests will be measured as women oriented motions written by male MPs. The research question is: in what way does the number of women oriented motions written by men change as the number of women in the Swedish Riksdag increases? Three hypotheses are presented in the study: H(1) Men will hand in more women oriented motions H(2) men will hand in less women oriented motions as women hand in more women oriented motions and H(3) the total percentage of women oriented motions will decrease. Key words are used in order to analyze and distinguish women oriented motions from other motions. All 163 000 motions during 1970-2020 are analyzed, and so is gender of the author and the year the motion was written. The result show that H(1) gets support, men do increase their number of women oriented motions as the number of women increases. This is however not seen until the number of women in parliament surpasses 40-45 percent. When the result is controlled for year, the correlation disappears. However, it is difficult to distinguish the yearly trend from women in parliament since women in parliament may have effect the yearly women oriented trend in society.