A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Evolution of women’s descriptive and substantive representation : evidence from 70 years of parliamentary debates; 
Authors: Nieminen Jeremias; Lahdelma Ilona; Simola Salla; Tukiainen Janne
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Publication year: 2026
Journal: European Journal of Political Economy
Article number: 102895
Volume: 95
ISSN: 0176-2680
eISSN: 1873-5703
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2026.102895
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : Partially Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2026.102895
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/527099179
Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY
Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF
Additional information: Main datasets will be made available upon publication, but voter surveys from the Finnish Social Science Archive cannot be published.
While differences in how men and women speak in parliament are well established, we still lack evidence encompassing a longer time span. Using Finnish parliamentary speech data from 1948 to 2018—a period spanning from token female presence to near-parity—we find that while women have always spoken differently than men, the differences widen as women’s share of seats surpasses roughly 10–20% in the 1960s. Crucially, women already serving in parliament at that point also shift toward topics more closely aligned with “women’s issues”, suggesting the change reflects a collective contextual shift rather than the arrival of new cohorts. Moreover, tenure length is not correlated with how women speak, further indicating that changes in women’s behavior relate more to contextual factors than to individual career trajectories.
Keywords:
critical mass, parliamentary speech, text analysis, women’s representation
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Funding information in the publication:
Tukiainen: 101045239—INTRAPOL—ERC-2021-COG. Views and opinions expressed are only those of the authors, however, and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
