Does Higher Education Matter for MPs in their Parliamentary Work? Evidence from the Swedish Parliament

Abstract

Individuals who have a higher education are highly overrepresented in national legislative bodies worldwide. In spite of an extensive body of literature interested in educational background and its relation to political activity, significantly fewer studies have engaged with the qualitative advantages and drawbacks of legislators’ educational background in their legislative work. The aim of this paper is to explore whether higher education functions as a resource for legislators in their political office. We use data from a unique elite survey conducted in the Swedish Parliament, which had a response rate of 82% (n = 287), to investigate the relation between educational background and the internal efficacy and influence of MPs. The quantitative findings indicate that there is little or no difference between legislators with and without higher education in terms of internal efficacy and influence. Contextualising the findings with 33 elite interviews, we find that while legislators value skills acquired through higher education in their work—such as the ability to handle large amounts of text and information—MPs without higher education display similar skills acquired in alternative ways.