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Women’s Substantive Representation in Legal Bills: Classifying and Applying Them to the Mexican Case

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Political Representation and Gender Equality in Mexico

Abstract

Recent research suggests that bills promoting gender equality are mainly pushed by female legislators. One of the hypotheses that has the greatest support on this issue is that when more women are elected to congresses the interest to legislate on issues related to gender equality increases as well. However, little is still known about this alleged connection, including biographical, partisan and ideological characteristics of the lawmakers committed to promoting gender-sensitive legislation. This work analyzes the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, a congress that has shown a significant increase in the percentage of female legislators worldwide. From an original database that includes more than 30 thousand pieces of legislation presented in the Chamber of Deputies between 1997 and 2019, this work analyses the possible incidence that institutional, partisan and biographical data can hold on the connection between descriptive and substantive representation.

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Correspondence to Sergio Bárcena Juárez .

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Bárcena Juárez, S., López Díaz de León, M.F., de la Peña Sánchez, M.J. (2022). Women’s Substantive Representation in Legal Bills: Classifying and Applying Them to the Mexican Case. In: Vidal-Correa, F. (eds) Political Representation and Gender Equality in Mexico. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96713-0_7

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