This is the journal's policy for retractions. Does the editor still have confidence in the findings of the main analysis? 3/4

In the comment "Ciacci (2025)" the author himself acknowledges that the main results do not hold up. Since the journal has published the comment, we can assume they agree with this conclusion. 2/4

Update: We submitted the comment to the Journal of Population Economics, and today we got a desk reject with this motivation. However, we do not know their conclusion about the main results and why the paper was not retracted. Clearly, they do not hold. 1/4

The household now owns two awesome and very heavy medals for the best Swedish ”young” economist. Thanks to everyone who has helped and encouraged our research over the years! ✨✨🍾

8/9 Having a background as a workplace representative for a blue-collar union is much more common among politicians in left-ideological parties. It greatly helps workers enter these parties, but not to reach higher rungs of the career ladder. 8/9

We estimate the size of workers’ disadvantage in progressing between career steps. Very large gaps remain after holding constant grades and cognitive scores (figure below) as well as education level and task-similarity with legislators (sensitivity tests). 7/9

Why are workers under-represented? Survey data shows no gap in career ambitions. Other survey data shows no gaps in public service motivation, honesty-humility, and job effort. Admin data shows lower grades from high school and cognitive tests from the military draft. 6/9

Workers become scarcer in higher positions in all parties. The Social Democrats under-represent their working-class voters to the same extent as center-right parties under-represent theirs. Numerical representation is the highest in the populist radical right. 5/9

While other political minorities—women, foreign-born, and young people—have seen improved numerical representation over time, this has not been the case for workers. 4/9

People from working-class occupations become scarcer on each career step. From 1973 to 2018, workers averaged 50% of the voting-age population, but 34% of nominated local politicians, 28% of municipal councilors, 17% of municipal list-leaders, and 13% of parliamentarians. 3/9