Ana Catalano Weeks

@anacweeks.bsky.social

4264 Followers 1390 Following

Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics, University of Bath, author of Making Gender Salient: From Gender Quota Laws to Policy bit.ly/3wzcTGM. Editor, LSQ. gender quotas, parties, gender & far right, mental load #academicmama https://anacweeks.github.io/

The text describes qualitative analysis of open-ended survey responses, in particular related to the challenges of accessing care policies in practice and the stigma around claiming costs for care.
The figure shows a clustered bar chart of average self reported likelihood of standing for election by treatment group and gender with 95 percent confidence intervals. The horizontal axis lists 4 groups, from left to right: Men Control, Men Treatment, Women Control, and Women Treatment. The vertical axis is labeled Mean Likelihood of Standing 0 to 10, with a numeric scale from 0 to 10 marked at intervals of 2 units. Each group is represented by a single vertical bar with a thin line and cap showing the confidence interval. For men, the control bar reaches 7.94 and the treatment bar reaches 7.90, with overlapping error bars. For women, the control bar reaches 6.72 and the treatment bar reaches 7.66, with limited overlap of error bars. Overall, men show similar mean likelihood in control and treatment, while women show a higher mean in the treatment group than in the control group.
The picture shows the article abstract: Women’s representation in European local governments remains stagnant at around one-third of councillors. One explanation for this longstanding gender gap relates to structural barriers blocking the supply of women candidates, including working practices which are not compatible with caring responsibilities. Yet, so far we do not know whether measures governments can implement to remedy this, including reimbursing care expenses and remote working, increase women’s political ambition. To answer this question, the study uses a survey experiment fielded to local councillors in England (N = 534). The survey manipulates exposure to a bundled set of family-friendly policies in a hypothetical council to identify the causal effect of such policies on static political ambition (councillors’ willingness to run for their current level of office), and explores heterogeneous effects by gender. The introduction of family-friendly policies significantly increases women’s, but not men’s, willingness to run for office again. Analysis of open-ended survey responses further reveals that women councillors more frequently brought up the difficulty of balancing care and work with a political role, while men were less likely to mention this. Overall, the study contributes new evidence about the important role that family policies might play in closing gender gaps in political ambition.
Gender Quota Laws and Women in Cabinets 36 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2024 Last revised: 11 Feb 2026 Tiffany Barnes University of Texas at Austin Giulia Venturini University of Strathclyde Ana Weeks University of Bath Date Written: December 06, 2024 Abstract Do legislative gender quotas increase women’s presence in cabinets? Women remain underrepresented in political leadership worldwide. As a remedy, over 80 countries have adopted gender quotas, requiring parties to nominate or elect a minimum share of women. But can quotas have effects beyond the positions they directly target? We argue that quotas increase the presence of women in executive cabinets by expanding the pool of experienced female legislators. Using a global dataset (168 countries) from 1990 to 2021, we find gender quotas increase the share of women ministers by 15 percent relative to the average baseline–including increases in both high- and lowprestige portfolios. Consistent with a supply-side mechanism, effects are largest in parliamentary democracies—where ministers are often selected from parliament—and in countries that experienced the greatest increases in women’s legislative representation post-quota. The findings suggest quotas can generate meaningful spillover effects at the highest levels of government.
Orca in Vancouver
Abstract: Globally, women continue to bear a disproportionate share of unpaid household labor. Recent research highlights that gender disparities in cognitive labor—the “thinking work” required to anticipate and monitor household needs—are even more pronounced than in physical household labor. Traditional theories attribute these inequalities to time availability, relative resources, and gender norms. However, it remains unclear whether these frameworks apply equally to cognitive and physical household labor. This paper introduces a new theory of gendered cognitive stickiness to explain how the domestic mental load is distributed. We argue that cognitive labor’s invisibility and lack of clear boundaries make it uniquely resistant to negotiation. Even women who successfully bargain their way out of physical chores remain disproportionately responsible for cognitive labor. Using a large-scale survey of 2,133 partnered, heterosexual U.S. parents, we find that while women’s employment and earnings have reduced their physical household labor, these factors do not alleviate their cognitive household burden. Mothers perform nearly all of this work, regardless of their time or resources. Cognitive labor remains an “unbargainable burden” for women, exposing a hidden constraint that suggests progress toward gender equality in the home is even more incomplete than previously recognized.
Figure 6. Effect of Mental Load Priming on Preferred Working Hours for Self and Partner, for Mothers and Fathers. Notes: The plot depicts point estimates with 95 per cent confidence intervals for the treatment effects (mental load priming) on the outcome variables measuring hours per week respondents would choose to work (described on the y-axis). Full results can be found in Tables A3 and A4 of the Appendix. Data include 997 respondents (500 mothers, 497 fathers).
Figure 3. Effect of Mental Load Priming on Engagement in Politics and Work. Notes: The plot depicts point estimates with 95 per cent confidence intervals for the treatment effects (mental load priming) on the outcome variables measuring intentions to engage in politics and workplace advancement (described on the y-axis). Full results can be found in Table A2 of the Appendix. Data include 998 respondents.
Table 2. Mental Load Survey Responses by Gender Note: Entries for Men and Women are mean values. The Difference column reports the differences in means (Fathers minus mothers) and the final column corresponding p-values according to t-tests.
Figure 1. Gender differences in mental household labour among parents in the UK. The survey question reads, ‘Considering all the mental work to take care of your household, about how much of this work is done by you, as opposed to someone else?’ Response ranges from 0 to 100. Data include 997 respondents (500 women, 497 men).
Table 1. Summary Statistics, UK Parents (Prolific Sample) Notes: All survey respondents are confirmed to be employed parents of children ages 0 to 18 living in the UK (eligibility criteria implemented via blocking on pre-survey data by Prolific). Not all respondents answered the question about the age of the youngest child, and some respondents are parents who do not have children living at home. Note that the response options for the number of children living at home range from minimum ‘0’ to maximum ‘4 or more’, which we code as ‘4’. The study was fielded from May 24, 2023 to June 4, 2023.
Table showing mean estimates of domestic cognitive labor by type of measure and gender.
Table showing mean responses to all task-based domestic mental load items by gender.
Table describing 21 domestic cognitive labor question items.
Abstract for "A Typology of US parents' mental loads: Core and episodic cognitive labor"
The picture shows a view of Uppsala, Sweden overlooking the river.
the figure shows the predicted values of political discussion with family and friends by the share of the mental load, among fathers
the figure shows the predicted values of political discussion with family and friends by share of the mental load, among mothers
figure shows predicte values of political discusssion with family and friends by share of the mental load, for mothers
The figure shows a coefficient plot of determinants of share of mental load among parents, by gender
Figure shows the reported responsibility for cognitive household labor tasks, by gender