The Gender Gap in the Swiss Parliament

Is the divine order on Wikipedia history? An analysis in the context of the Capstone course "Online perception of female politicians" at the University of ZurichOn behalf of and in cooperation with alliance F

The Association of Swiss Women's Organizations alliance F has commissioned master students of the Political Science Institute of the University of Zurich to investigate the online presence of female politicians in Switzerland. There are many ways to approach this task, because the data situation in the online area is manifold. The present study aims at an in-depth Wikipedia analysis of the elected candidates, i.e. the 246 members of parliament. The 246 elected members of parliament are therefore examined because only a fraction of the non-elected candidates has a Wikipedia contribution. Wikipedia is an interesting source of data because it is actively used. Wikipedia is one of the five most visited websites in Switzerland. Both the content of a Wikipedia article and metadata are to be analyzed.

There is a cross-party gender difference only in a few policy areas that are emphasized on Wikipedia. One example is gender equality policy. This remains a women's issue even in left-wing parties. Moreover, the emphasis on "hard policies" such as the economy or the military does not systematically differentiate between the sexes. However, the repoliticization of environmental issues has opened up a new gender gap beyond the GPS.

Female politicians generally have a greater presence on Wikipedia than their male counterparts. For example, 98% of women parliamentarians have a Wikipedia entry, but only 87% of women parliamentarians. We do not find any systematic gender differences in the time of origin and length of Wikipedia entries. However, female politicians' entries are edited and clicked on more often after the elections than those of male politicians.