Understanding the Resume: The Impact of Occupation on Policy Entrepreneurship in the North Carolina State Legislature
Abstract
This thesis examines the impact occupation has on policy entrepreneurship in the North
Carolina State Legislature. This study examines the frequency at which legislators
with different occupational backgrounds sponsor bills in their corresponding occupational
policy fields. Policy categories are broken down into four female, four male, and
one gender neutral category to ascertain whether the “gender effect” often seen in
legislatures is in fact an “occupation effect.” This study finds that the difference
in bill sponsorship was statistically significant only for the four female policy
groups but not the male and control groups. Workers coming from female policy categories
tended to sponsor more bills than non-workers. Legislators from the “female” occupations
also tended to sponsor more bills in the other three female policy categories. This
pattern was not true of legislators from the “male” occupations. The study concludes
that the gender effect is in fact an occupation effect in female policy categories
and that legislators coming from female professions behave like “women” regardless
of gender.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Public Policy StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3161Citation
Demashkieh, Sarra (2010). Understanding the Resume: The Impact of Occupation on Policy Entrepreneurship in the
North Carolina State Legislature. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3161.Collections
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