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Local councillor recruitment operates in such a way that it favours the possibility for individuals with certain characteristics to enter and to remain in public office. One of the central questions then becomes: what are these characteristics and how do they influence the selection chances of these specific individuals? The aim of this contribution is to comparatively study a number of these questions for the population of local councillors in Europe. It evokes questions on the similarity or divergence of social biases in political recruitment in different local political systems. Do the same social background characteristics distinguish 'the many' from 'the few' in all countries under study? Do certain patterns in the 'skewing' of social background emerge and to what extent can they be linked to different institutional histories in local government? As such this study is one of the first to structurally scrutinise local councillors in such a systematic variety of political systems.

From the analysis of the social background of the local elected people in Flanders during the period 1946-1988 one can conclude that there are barriers for women, lower social classes and certain age categories preventing them from moving up the local political elite. The democratization process of the Flemish local political elite bas not yet made much progress. It appears from the fact that men are more numerous in political fonctions, that the distribution among the various professional categories strongly deviates from the general social stratification and from the conclusion that certain age categories are clearly dominant. It is however clear that the composition of the elites neverfully reflect society as a whole. On the other hand, the important fact is that the differences cannot be reduced to smaller variances which inevitably go together with any representative system.

The gender, profession, & age of local elected Flemish politicians (N = 23,465), 1946-1988, are analyzed with respect to the composition of the population as a whole, & changes in it, drawing on data from the Belgian National Instit for Statistics. It is found that women have been underrepresented in Flemish local politics throughout the era, although slight improvements are observed from 1970 onward, especially after implementation of a representation law in 1994. Higher socioeconomic strata tend to be overrepresented, especially in larger communities; whereas the number of blue-collar workers, agrarians, & employers decreased significantly, the number of intellectuals, employees, & teachers increased. Few representatives under age 35 & over age 60 tended to be elected, but a decrease of average age around 1970 is observed. Differences between representatives of the various political parties are also discussed. 2 Tables. Adapted from the source document.