Overburdened or Underutilized: An Examination of Women’s Committee Assignments

• In Event: Identity & Representation

Abstract

Scholarship examining women's committee assignments in legislative institutions has often focused on the individual committees that women serve on, yet there has been far less scholarly attention dedicated to female legislators' overall committee portfolios. These portfolios, rather than individual assignments, provide insights into the full scope and ability of female legislators to contribute to the policy-making process within the legislature. To begin this exploration of the committee portfolios, I build a framework explaining the institutional and contextual conditions that impact the magnitude of committee service and policy focus of female legislators' portfolios. I argue that women's representation in a chamber and the institutional constraints on committee service will impact the size and substance of their committee portfolios. I tested my theoretical expectations using a dataset of male and female state legislators' committee assignments in 96 state legislative chambers during the 2017-2018 legislative session. I find that as the proportion of female legislators increases in a chamber, female legislators are assigned to more committee service. Further, the rules dictating the amount of committee service reduce the asymmetries between female and male legislators' committee portfolios. This study contributes to our understanding of how institutional rules and contexts contribute to the differences in access and outcomes for male and female legislators in legislatures.

Author

• Tessa Provins, University of Arizona