Area 2 – Women and men have equal opportunities to INFLUENCE the parliament’s working procedure

Area 2 is inward-oriented and includes both descriptive and substantive elements of representation. It concerns both elected members and parliamentary employees.

Once in the parliament, women and men should have equal opportunity to retain their position and to influence the work. Parliaments are organised around a set of standardised rules, operating procedures and institutional facilities, which may either support or hinder the equal inclusion of women in all decision-making and leadership roles (Norris and Krook: 2011). Since parliaments are traditionally ‘male’ institutions (Connolly: 2013), with women entering in slowly increasing numbers since just a few decades ago, the core issue concerns how a parliament’s procedures and organisation allow women to be effective and influential in their work. This criterion assesses the procedures and organisational aspects of the work done in the parliament by both elected members and employed staff.

Area 2 has three domains; its indicators mainly evaluate procedures and organisational aspects at institutional level. 

  1. The first domain focuses on MPs’ presence and capacity, by assessing gender balance in the parliament’s composition.
  2. The second domain refers to the parliament’s working environment and work-life balance measures.
  3. The third domain looks at the organisation, gender-equality procedures and working conditions of parliamentary employees.