European Parliament: Gender Aspect of Law-Making Process

The article attempts to understand to what extent the gender identity of members of the European Parliament initiating a bill determines the subject and nature (feminine or masculine) of the issued legal acts. The research question is whether there is an influence of gender in relation to the subject and nature of regulations adopted by the European Parliament. The chronological period under study is 2009-2022 and is determined by the available open data. For the purpose of the study, a proprietary database was compiled, where the units of analysis are regulations issued by the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure. The sample population consisted of 1155 observations. The key method of analysis was qualitative descriptive statistical analysis. The calculations were made within the framework of the freely distributed software Orange Data Mining. The results of the analysis demonstrate in general the lack of influence of the gender aspect in relation to the nature and subject of regulations and laws issued by the European Parliament. The gender of parliamentarians-initiators is not a factor determining the nature and subject matter of legislative acts issued by the European Parliament. The results of the analysis, therefore, refute the null hypothesis and confirm the alternative hypothesis: the nature (feminine/masculine) of the bills initiated and regulations adopted by the European Parliament does not depend on the gender factor (that is, on the gender of the deputy who initiated the bill).