Last in, first out – Gendered patterns of local councillor dropout

Councillor retention is an issue that has been largely neglected in recent academic literature despite being a present concern for policymakers in the field and those involved in the practice of local politics. This article utilises original data to consider the dropout patterns of councillors in greater detail, particularly with regard to sex. It confirms the finding of the existing literature that women are more likely to drop out of local politics than men and then goes further than previous work to examine reasons as to why this might be the case and to introduce data looking at the future political intentions of councillors after they have stood down. Evidence is found that, having stood down from their council duties, women councillors are less likely to want to remain politically involved than their male colleagues.