Do Virtual Meetings Lead to More Gender Equal Debates?

The activity of open parliamentary debate is a crucial part of democratic government. Previous studies have shown that women face barriers that make them use less speaking time compared to men. In addition, women are, according to previous research, more biased towards engaging in soft topics, such as culture and care in comparison to hard topics such as economy and infrastructure. During the COVID-19 pandemic over half of the world’s national parliaments shifted to a virtual format that lasted throughout the pandemic. Emerging research on the transformation from face-to-face/onsite meetings to virtual/online meetings in society highlights radical changes to the meeting environment and meeting dynamics. This paper explores how women’s speaking time changed in online council meetings in Sweden after the temporary shift from their previous onsite format. Using video analysis of recorded meetings and a novel method of measuring speaking time, this paper compares onsite council meetings with their online counterpart in three different councils. The findings suggest that the gender distribution of speaking time between soft and hard topics became more even in the virtual meetings compared to onsite parliamentary meetings. In addition, there was a more even distribution of speaking time between men and women in the online meetings compared to their onsite counterpart. The findings contribute to the understanding of how the transformation from onsite to virtual meetings impact the distribution of speaking time between men and women. However, more research is needed on underlying mechanisms of how speaking time is impacted when transitioning from onsite to online meetings.