Legislator gender and legislator policy priorities in the Argentine chamber of deputies and the United States House of Representatives

This paper suggests that the findings of the literature on sender differences in legislator policy priorities in advanced industrial democracies very well may be generalizable to nations in the developing world, particularly those in Latin America. Previous studies of gender differences in legislator policy priorities have been confined to a small number of advanced industrial democracies. These studies have found women legislators to give a higher degree of priority than men to policies in the thematic areas of women's rights and children and families. Employing data on bill introduction, this paper tests for and finds similar gender differences in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the United States House of Representatives. Significant gender differences were found in both national legislatures in the areas of women's rights and children and families. No significant gender differences were found in other areas widely considered to be of traditional interest to women.