Abstract
There is a vast amount of literature dealing with differences in legislative behaviour based on gender. Since data suggest existence of the gender's influence on MPs' parliamentary activity, the factor is commonly utilized as a control variable in quantitative analyses of representatives' legislative behaviour.
However, most of the findings come up from scrutiny of Western European parliaments. Unfortunately, the research topic is underrepresented in CEE political science.
Therefore, the paper takes on the task and delivers complex analysis of the impact of gender on a parliamentary activity of MPs in the Czech Republic. The study is based on a unique, comprehensive dataset of MPs' activity of approximately 1,500 legislators in the lower parliamentary chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, since 1993 until 2017.
The results imply that female deputies vote slightly more active. Nonetheless, in other disciplines, such as legislative activity or speaking at plenary meetings, they represent similarly to men.
Interestingly, female MPs have higher chances to become a member of the chamber's committee, sub-committee or commission. Similarly, this applies also to a presidency of the bodies.
Last but not least, I analyse qualitative differences in deputies' speech-making based on their gender. Even though female MPs address plenary meetings almost as frequently as their male colleagues, they speak about different topics.
To be more specific, female deputies deal mainly with soft policy issues (e.g. healthcare, social policy etc.), while male deputies discuss hard policy issues (e.g. macroeconomics, transportation etc.) predominantly. Overall, these findings contribute to an understanding of the legislative behaviour of MPs in a CEE country.