This study offers a contextual explanation for discrepancies in women’s rates of election between European national legislatures and the European Parliament (EP). Many European Union (EU) member states elect more women to the EP than to their national lower legislative houses. However, the margin of difference between women’s presence in the EP and these national legislatures varies widely across member states. Using data for the EU-27, the study corroborates previous research in showing that institutional accounts offer limited leverage in explaining these varying gaps. Instead, it argues that the discrepancy between women’s descriptive representation at national and European levels in each case is the result of contextual factors: voters, parties, and upwardly mobile politicians’ valuation of the EP and EP service moderates the translation of the national pool of potential female candidates into EP officeholders.