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The present report responds to a request from the Scottish Parliament Gender Sensitive Parliament Advisory Group to assist the Advisory Group’s future consideration of job sharing through a literature review (during the period Dec 2025- Feb 2026).<br/><br/>While the aim of the report is to make recommendations based on the experiences of a range of other legislatures in this area, we found no evidence of a job sharing precedent in other legislatures around the world. It is, therefore, not possible to assess if job sharing has reduced barriers to political office based on existing evidence. Our recommendations, instead, draw on a review of the case for and against job sharing in elected office. For example, a relevant study focusing on citizen’s intentions to stand for political office suggests that the job sharing option is more popular among women than men and very popular among disabled people. The study findings, thus, indicate that job sharing can widen political participation. Furthermore, job sharing in the public sector and the private sector is described in the relevant literature as more popular among underrepresented groups, which further indicates that job sharing in a political context may follow the same path, widening participation.<br/><br/>Similarly scarce is evidence on the lived working experiences of job share partners in elected positions in local government or parliaments. It is indicative that a recent consultation on the expansion of job share in elected office in Wales received relatively limited responses, most of which were not grounded on lived job sharing experiences in executive roles.<br/>Such lack of evidence on job sharing suggests there is a need for primary research, beyond a consultation or a literature review. If we are to achieve an in-depth understanding of job sharing in elected office, we would - alongside the implementation of job sharing in the Scottish Parliament - need fieldwork researchers to actively study the experiences of job share partners, document their experiences, and systematically analyse them.