A Gendered Agenda? Female Representation and Bill Sponsorship in the Italian Parliament (1987-2008)

WP-LPF 4/11

While dynamics in female legislative recruitment have been considered in some studies and researches about the Italian politics, less attention has been paid to the legislative activity of women elected in the Italian Parliament, and to whether it differs somehow from that of their male colleagues. Does gender matter for the decision-making process and its outputs? Once elected in the Parliament, do women MPs display distinctive legislative interests? Which priorities do they display in their legislative activity? Does an increase of the presence of women in the Parliament affect the legislative agenda of the legislature? Does it change the policy priorities of the entire legislature? This paper aims to answer these questions, which are relevant to understand how values, interests and rules interact and affect the law making process, through a quantitative analysis of the bills introduced in the Italian Chamber of deputies in six legislatures over a time span of twenty years.