Do Women Promote Women? Prime Ministers' Gender, Ideology, and Ministerial Selection

The literature argues that the appointment of a woman to a chief executive position is a boost for women’s empowerment in politics. Yet, while some female prime ministers (PMs) promote relatively high numbers of women among ministers, others do not. Why? What role does the PM’s gender have in defining the gender composition of the cabinet? Is ideology to play the lion’s share? This article answers through a large-N comparative analysis of 286 cabinets across Europe from 2000 to 2023, in light of an original dataset. Key findings are that no independent effect of gender and ideology can be detected. However, their interaction reveals that, due to electoral considerations, left-wing male PMs promote women more than left-wing female PMs, while there is no difference on the right. The article has implications for the debate about gendered institutions and their definition of political leaders’ strategic behavior.