2020 Women in Parliament

25years
in
review
Women in parliament:
1995–2020
A quarter of a century after the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in
Beijing, expectations regarding women’s participation in politics have grown in ambition.
Achieving a critical mass of 30 per cent of seats held by women is no longer the objective.
Shifting the paradigm towards full equality has been the biggest achievement of the past 25
years. With such a bold goal ahead, active steps are needed to accelerate the change that will
lead to gender parity in parliaments.
The last 25 years have seen a significant increase in the proportion of women in parliaments
around the world. In 1995, just 11.3 per cent of seats held by parliamentarians were held by
women. By 2015, this figure had almost doubled to 22.1 per cent. And although the pace
of progress has slowed in the past five years, in 2020, the share of women in national
parliaments is close to 25 per cent.
Women protest in front of the Swiss Parliament during a nationwide women’s strike for gender
equality on 14 June 2019. Elections later that year saw an unprecedented number of women elected to
parliament. © Stefan Wermuth/AFP
HIGHLIGHTS
Globally – 25 years
• In the past 25 years, the
overall percentage of
women in parliaments
has more than doubled,
reaching 24.9 per cent
in 2020, up from 11.3 in
1995. In lower and single
houses of parliament, the
percentage of seats held
by women increased from
11.6 to 24.9 per cent. Upper
houses saw the percentage
increase from 9.4 to
24.6 per cent.
• In 1995, no parliament had
reached gender parity. In
2020, four countries have
at least 50 per cent women
in their lower or single
chambers, and one has
over 60 per cent of seats
held by women (Rwanda).
• There are countries in all
regions except Europe
that still have lower or
single parliamentary
chambers with less than
5 per cent women: three
in the Pacific, three in the
MENA region, one in the
Americas, one in Asia and
one in sub-Saharan Africa
– nine in total. In 1995, the
total was 52 such chambers
spanning all regions.
• Over a 25-year span, the
largest progress in women’s
representation has been
achieved by Rwanda, the
United Arab Emirates,
Andorra and Bolivia, with
+57
, +50, +42.8 and + 42.3
percentage points gained
between 1995 and 2020,
respectively, in their lower
or single houses.
Dansk Interparlamentarisk Gruppes bestyrelse 2019-20
IPU Alm.del - Bilag 8
Offentligt
2
The countries that have achieved the greatest progress between 1995 and 2020 in their single
and lower houses of parliament are Rwanda (+57 percentage points), United Arab Emirates
(+50 points), Andorra (+42.8 points) and Bolivia (+42.3 points).
Similarly impressive increases in women’s participation have occurred in upper houses in
Bolivia (+43.5 points), Mexico (+37 points), Belgium (+36 points), Antigua and Barbuda (+35
points) and Argentina (also +35 points).
Looking at the regional picture, the Americas is the only region to have reached the 30 per
cent threshold across all houses combined, recording the biggest increase of all regions
between 1995 and 2020 (+18.6 points). Europe, at +16.7 points, has also made significant
strides and is only 0.1 percentage point away from being the second region to reach 30 per
cent. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Pacific regions, women’s participation
in parliament has grown by about 13 points. At +6.8 points, Asia has posted the slowest pace
of change between 1995 and 2020.
Europe is no longer leading the way on women’s participation in parliament. But
the Nordic countries is the only subregion to have topped the 40 per cent threshold
(43.9 per cent in 2020).
In 1995, 8 of the top 10 lower and single houses of parliament for women’s participation were
located in Europe, with the remaining 2 being in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In 2020,
the top 10 is a far more diverse list, including 2 countries in Europe, 5 in the Americas, 2 in sub-
Saharan Africa and, for the first time ever, 1 in the MENA region.
Overall, parliaments are moving in the direction of gender parity. In 2020, women hold 50 per
cent or more seats in the lower or single houses of parliament in four countries, including
one chamber with over 60 per cent (Rwanda). In 1995, only the top-ranking country (Sweden)
had reached 40 per cent.
In 1995, in 109 out of 174 countries for which data is available, women held less than 10 per
cent of the seats in the single or lower houses of parliament, and a mere 2.9 per cent of
parliaments – all in Europe – had attained 30 per cent or more.
In 2020, in only 24 out of 191 countries did women hold less than 10 per cent of seats in their
lower and single houses. And although a majority of countries still have less than 20 per cent
of seats held by women, some 28.3 per cent of single or lower houses have at least 30 per
cent. More than one in ten countries (12.6 per cent) has 40 per cent or more of seats held by
women in parliament, and 2.1 per cent of countries have reached parity.
Regionally – 25 years
• Highs and lows:The
Americas saw the
greatest increase in
women’s participation in
parliament, with +18.6
percentage points all
chambers combined; Asia
recorded the slowest
growth rate, having
gained only +6.8 points
over the past 25 years.
• In 2020, only the
Americas have achieved
more than 30 per cent
women across all houses.
• Although Europe is no
longer in the lead as
a region, the Nordic
countries are the only
sub-region to have over
40 per cent women
parliamentarians.
2019 elections
• Following parliamentary
elections in 2019, the
greatest strides in
women’s participation
were made in the United
Arab Emirates, Dominica
and Uzbekistan.
Lessons learned
• Quotas have been a key
determinant of progress
in women’s political
participation. Of the top
20 countries with the
largest share of women
in parliament in 2020,
16 apply some type of
gender quota.
• Other key factors
that help accelerate
progress include policies
to promote women’s
recruitment by political
parties, strong women’s
movements, awareness-
raising efforts and a
more gender-sensitive
political culture.
Table 1
Top 10 countries for women’s participation in single and lower houses of parliament,
1995–2020
1995 2020
Country % women Country % women
Sweden 40.4 Rwanda 61.3
Norway 39.4 Cuba 53.2
Denmark 33.5 Bolivia 53.1
Finland 33.5 United Arab Emirates 50.0
Netherlands 32.7 Mexico 48.2
Seychelles 27
.3 Nicaragua 47
.3
Austria 26.8 Sweden 47
.0
Germany 26.3 Grenada 46.7
Iceland 25.4 Andorra 46.4
Argentina 25.3 South Africa 46.4
HIGHLIGHTS
3
Yet all regions except Europe still have at least one single
or lower parliamentary chamber with less than 5 per cent
of seats held by women: three in the Pacific region, three
in the MENA region, one in the Americas, one in Asia and
one in sub-Saharan Africa, or nine in total. All three Pacific
Island States included in this list currently have no female
members. Two of them, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu,
have previously had women in their parliament. Micronesia
has never had a female parliamentarian.
In 2020, the Pacific is the only region to have parliaments
without women members. In 1995, 10 countries – spanning
all regions except Europe – had no women at all in their single
or lower houses of parliament. In 2015, this trend was still
observable in the Pacific and MENA regions. Progress in the
MENA region has been accelerated by reforms in the Gulf
countries, which have lifted legal limitations on women’s
participation in politics. As of today, no country legally restricts
women’s participation in parliament, although social and
economic barriers still obstruct the path to achieving a level
playing field with men.
Women in parliamentary
leadership roles
Despite further progress in female representation in
parliamentary leadership roles, women are still
underrepresented among Speakers of parliament.1
The
share of women presiding officers of parliament has
nearly doubled between 1995 and 2020, rising from 10.5
per cent to 20.5 per cent. Today, women hold 57 out of 278
presiding officer posts in parliaments or parliamentary
chambers in 192 countries.
Since 2015, parliaments in four regions have appointed
their first female Speaker. Asia tops the list with five such
appointments: Nepal (2015), Viet Nam (2016), Philippines
(2018), and Indonesia and Kazakhstan (both 2019). Four
African countries have appointed a female Speaker for the
first time in their history: Namibia (2015), and Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Togo (2019). In the MENA
region, women have secured presiding officer roles for the
first time in history in three countries: United Arab Emirates
(2015), Syrian Arab Republic (2016) and Bahrain (2018). And
in Europe, the General Council of Andorra appointed its first
female Speaker in 2019.
Women have now served as parliamentary Speakers in
all regions of the world. Only the Pacific region does not
currently have a female presiding officer of parliament.
For the past decade, Rwanda’s
Chamber of Deputies has been
chaired by a woman. In 2013, it
became the first country to have
over 60% of parliamentary seats
held by women.
© Cyril Ndegeya/AFP
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) data for single and lower houses;
figures correct as of 1 January each year, except for 1995 (1 July).
Figure 1
Women in national parliaments, world average 1995–2020
11.3%
3.3
3.1
2.6
1.8
22.1%
18.8%
24.9%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
13.1%
% women growth rate (5-year span)
15.7% 2.8
Figure 2
Progress of women Speakers, 1995–2020
10.5%
12.4%
8.3%
13.0%
15.8%
20.5%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
1 In this report, “Speaker of
parliament” is synonymous
with “presiding officer”
.
4
IPU data from 167 parliamentary chambers paints
a contrasting picture of women’s leadership of
parliamentary committees. Women currently chair 26 per
cent of foreign affairs, defence, finance, human rights and
gender equality committees combined. Yet this share varies
significantly by committee type, from 73 per cent of gender
equality committees to just over 10 per cent of defence
committees. Meanwhile, women chair one-third of human
rights committees, one-fifth of foreign affairs committees and
13 per cent of finance committees.
Gender quotas: A key
determinant of progress
Before 1995, only two countries – Argentina and Nepal –
applied legislated gender quotas. But quotas have spread
to all regions of the world in the past 25 years, driving up
women’s representation in parliaments in the process.
Today, elections in 81 countries are held under legislation
that provides for gender quotas, with two countries adopting
new legal measures in 2019 alone: a presidential decree
mandating gender parity in the United Arab Emirates,
and a new constitutional provision in Benin providing for
the introduction of quotas in the electoral law. In Guinea,
meanwhile, the gender quota for candidate lists was revised
in May 2019 upwards from 30 per cent to 50 per cent.
On average, the share of women in parliamentary chambers
without quotas is considerably lower. In 2019, women won
25.8 per cent of all seats in parliamentary chambers up for
renewal. In the 40 chambers that applied quotas – either
legislated or applied voluntarily by political parties – women
gained 30.3 per cent of seats on average. In the remaining
28 chambers without quota systems, only 17
.9 per cent of
seats were won by women.
Women at the IPU – a long
history of participation
and influence
Throughout its 130-year history, the IPU has steadily
paved the way for women’s participation in politics. By
many accounts it has also led the way, for instance by
introducing quotas to enhance women’s role in decision-
making. Women have played a role in the organization since
the 1920s. And since the 1980s, women MPs have had a
dedicated structure – the Forum of Women Parliamentarians
– to give female representatives a stronger voice in the
organization, and quotas have been introduced to enhance
women’s role in decision-making.
Women in leadership roles
• Since 1995, two women have been elected as IPU
President: the first female President was Ms. Najma
Heptulla (India) in 1999, followed by Ms. Gabriela Cuevas
(Mexico) in 2017
. Ms. Cuevas is also the youngest
President in IPU’s history.
Table 2
Gender quotas in the top 20 countries by share of
women parliamentarians, single or lower houses, 2020
Country % women Quota
1. Rwanda 61.3 Yes**
2. Cuba 53.2 No
3. Bolivia 53.1 Yes***
4. United Arab Emirates 50.0 Yes**
5. Mexico 48.2 Yes***
6. Nicaragua 47
.3 Yes***
7
. Sweden 47
.0 Yes*
8. Grenada 46.7 No
9. Andorra 46.4 No
” South Africa 46.4 Yes*
11. Finland 46.0 No
12. Costa Rica 45.6 Yes**
13. Spain 44.0 Yes***
14. Senegal 43.0 Yes**
15. Namibia 42.7 Yes*
16. Switzerland 41.5 Yes*
17
. Norway 41.4 Yes*
18. Mozambique 41.2 Yes*
19. Argentina 40.9 Yes**
20. New Zealand 40.8 Yes*
Yes* Voluntary party quota
Yes** Legislated quota (reserved seats plus legislated candidate quota)
Yes*** Legislated and party quotas
Figure 3
Women speakers per region, 1 January 2020
Sub-Saharan
Africa
16
Asia
8
MENA
1
Americas
12
Europe
16
5
• The share of women in the Executive Committee has
increased from 30.8 per cent in 1995 to 35.7 per cent
today. Quotas for women in the Executive Committee
were first introduced in 1987
.
• Women have also made strides in IPU’s Standing
Committees. Twenty-five years ago, women only occupied
2 out of 12 presiding officer positions (both as vice-
presidents). In 2020, four out of eight presiding officers are
women (one president and three vice-presidents).
Women delegates
• Over the past 25 years, women’s representation at IPU
Assemblies has consistently been higher than the share
of women in parliaments worldwide. In 1995, 17 per cent
of seats were held by women delegates (compared with
11.3 per cent of seats held by parliamentarians). That figure
has stabilized at about 30 per cent since 2005.
Regional trends
The Americas: Long-standing equality measures yield
sustainable results
Over the past 25 years, women’s participation in parliament
has increased at a faster pace in the Americas than in any
other region. In 1995, at the time of the adoption of the
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the share of
women in parliament was 12.7 per cent, placing the region
just behind Asia and Europe. The Americas outpaced all other
regions in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and
that trend has accelerated in the last five years as women’s
representation has gained 1 percentage point per year on
average. In January 2019, the Americas became the first
region to achieve the 30-per-cent threshold.
Today, three of the top five countries with the highest
share of women parliamentarians are located in Latin
America and the Caribbean (Bolivia, Cuba and Mexico).
Elections held in 2019 confirmed the region’s upward
trend, with considerable progress and no setbacks.
Dominica saw the region’s highest increase in the share
of seats held by women parliamentarians (with a gain of
23.8 points), while Uruguay (+5.5 points) and Guatemala
(+3 points) also registered considerable gains. In some
cases, progress did not exceed 2 points (Argentina
+1.2 points, Panama +1.8 points and Canada +2 points).
Dominica recorded one of the highest gains among all
parliamentary renewals in 2019 and across all regions.
Women won 38.1 per cent of seats in the House of
Assembly – a steep rise from 14.3 per cent in 2014, even
in the absence of gender quotas. Despite strong traditional
perceptions of gender roles in the Caribbean, women have
long been engaged in local politics in Dominica, where they
account for 40.9 per cent of elected city council members.2
The country also has a history of women occupying
-10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0
United Arab Emirates 27.5
Dominica 23.8
Uzbekistan 16.0
Thailand 10.5
Switzerland 9.5
Ukraine 8.9
Mauritius 8.4
San Marino 8.3
Portugal 7.4
Andorra 7.1
Malawi 6.3
Estonia 5.9
Belarus 5.5
Finland 5.5
Guatemala 5.5
Nauru 5.3
Republic of Moldova 5.0
Austria 4.9
South Africa 4.6
Belgium 3.3
India 3.0
Uruguay 3.0
Canada 2.0
Solomon Islands 2.0
Australia 1.8
Panama 1.8
United Kingdom 1.8
Denmark 1.7
Mozambique 1.6
Poland 1.5
Namibia 1.4
Dem. People’s Rep. of Korea 1.3
Argentina 1.2
Botswana 1.2
Dem. Rep. of Congo 1.1
Oman 1.1
Greece 1.0
Indonesia 0.6
Tuvalu -0.4
Israel -0.8
Maldives -1.3
Philippines -1.8
Nigeria -2.2
Marshall Islands -3.0
Spain -3.4
Madagascar -5.2
Tunisia -8.8
Benin 0.0
Guinea-Bissau 0.0
Micronesia (Fed. States of) 0.0
Figure 4
Parliamentary renewals in 2019
Progress and setbacks (in %) of women in lower or single
houses of parliament renewed in 2019:
2 CEPALSTAT (latest data from 2015). Available at https://
estadisticas.cepal.org/cepalstat/tabulador/ConsultaIntegrada.
asp?idIndicador=1708&idioma=i (accessed on 3 January 2020).
Figure 5
Women in national parliaments, the Americas, 1995–2020
12.7%
26.4%
31.3%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
35.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
15.4%
22.7%
18.6%
3.7
4.1
4.9
3.2
2.7
6
leadership positions. A female Speaker of parliament was
in office from 2010 to February 2020, and Dominica had
the Caribbean’s first female prime minister (between 1980
and 1995). The sharp increase in the share of women
parliamentarians following the 2019 elections may also be
attributed to the fact that Dominica has a small parliament,
and to an increase in the number of women candidates
when compared with previous elections (13 in 2019, up
from 6 in 2014, despite barely any change in the total
number of candidates).
Women’s representation in politics in the Americas varies
considerably across subregions.The Caribbean has the
highest percentage of seats held by women in parliament, at
35.8 per cent. Cuba, the subregion’s largest parliament, leads
the way with 53.2 per cent of seats held by women members,
followed by Grenada and Dominica. North America comes next
with 36.1 per cent of seats held by women parliamentarians.
Here, Mexico tops the list with 48.2 per cent women in the
lower house and 49.2 per cent of seats held by women in the
upper house. Central America is third, led by Nicaragua (where
women make up 47
.3 per cent of parliamentarians) and by
Costa Rica, although the subregion-wide average remains at
27
.7 per cent. South America registers the lowest overall share
at 26.4 per cent, although Bolivia has an impressive 53.1 per
cent of seats held by women in the lower house and 47
.2 per
cent in the upper house.
The region has a long track record of applying equality
measures, with 16 countries in Latin America having
enacted quota laws.These measures have yielded
significant gains. For most of these countries, the 30
per cent objective no longer stands. They are creeping
towards, and in some cases achieving, parity. Two of the
region’s leaders – Bolivia and Mexico – are examples of
the successful implementation of gender quotas. After
introducing quotas in the 1990s, both countries have
progressively raised targets towards parity, as well as
strengthening mechanisms for implementation. Some
gains in women’s representation have occurred following
the intervention of national courts, which have upheld the
newly adopted gender equality mechanisms. In Bolivia, the
2010 law that introduced gender parity and an alternation
system would not have been so successful without the
systematic rejection of non-compliant party lists.3
These
examples show that quotas alone may not be enough to
bring about significant change, and that progress also relies
on the commitment of political parties combined with
ambitious targets and strict enforcement and accountability
mechanisms. Likewise, the effectiveness of quotas is also
very much dependent on the electoral system. Proportional
representation has proven to be an advantage.
Publicly monitored campaign finances also strengthen
the implementation of legislated quotas. Data from
Brazil and Peru shows that donations to male candidates
are, on average, three times higher than to their female
counterparts, not least because women are not as well-
connected as men to potential sources of campaign funding.
In 1997
, Brazil became one of the first countries in the
Americas to implement a gender quota system. At the time,
women held less than 7 per cent of seats in the Chamber
of Deputies. Under the new electoral law, party lists had to
include at least 30 per cent candidates of each sex. Yet at the
2018 elections, more than 20 years later, women won barely
15 per cent of seats in Brazil’s lower house of parliament.
Unregulated campaign funding has skewed the electoral
process in favour of men – and against women. The 5-point
rise in female representation in the Brazilian Chamber of
Bolivia was the first country in the Americas to reach gender parity in
parliament, including many indigenous women lawmakers.
© Gonzalo Espinoza/AFP
Indigenous women in the Americas face “triple
discrimination”
. They are often excluded for being
female, indigenous and poor, all at once. There are over
70 million indigenous people living in the Americas and
their struggle for political representation, regardless of
gender, has been hard. In Bolivia, indigenous women
achieved parliamentary representation in 1989 when
Remedios Loza was elected to the National Congress.
In recent years, the support that indigenous women’s
movements have provided to the ruling party in
Bolivia has translated into increased representation in
parliament. In the United States, the first Native American
women were not elected to Congress until 2019. 3 RT, “Cómo Bolivia se convirtió en el segundo país del mundo con
mayor participación de mujeres en política”
, 2 October 2019. Available
at https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/329017-bolivia-ejemplar-camino-
paridad-democratica (accessed on 22 January 2020).
7
Deputies since the 2014 elections can be attributed to a
court ruling on public funding of campaigns, which increased
women’s success rate.
Although legislated gender quotas have, on balance,
yielded positive results in the Americas, 17 countries
in the region have no national quota policies. Most of
these are located in North and Central America. In Canada
and the United States, women’s representation in lower
houses has increased by 10 percentage points between 1995
and 2020, standing today at 23.4 per cent and 29 per cent
respectively. In the United States, gender inequality in politics
is exacerbated by the majoritarian electoral system, a strong
incumbency advantage and gender-specific fundraising. In
Canada, meanwhile, gender-biased media treatment and the
absence of family-friendly and gender-sensitive workplaces
have been cited as the main deterrents to women standing
for election.4
Although these circumstances are not specific to
Canada, they are a common feature of public debate around
the barriers to women’s increased participation in political life.
Canada is, however, edging closer to the critical mass of 30
per cent, with a strong civil society push to get more women
to run for elected office.The 2019 elections saw a record
number of women standing: 42 per cent of candidates were
women, up from 33 per cent in 2015. As a result, the share
of female parliamentarians is now 2 percentage points higher
than previously.5
Europe: Sustained progress but losing its leading position
European countries have also registered significant gains
in women’s presence in national parliaments over the past
25 years. Between 1995 and 2020, the share of female
parliamentarians in the region rose from 13.2 per cent to
29.9 per cent (+16.7 points), just 0.1 percentage points short
of the 30 per cent threshold.
Although Europe has all-but achieved the critical mass,
the region has lost its leading position. In 1995, 8 of
the top 10 countries by women’s representation were in
Europe (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands,
Austria, Germany, Iceland). In 2020, however, only two
European countries – Sweden and Andorra – make it onto
the list. Progress in Europe is still driven by the Nordic
countries (43.9 per cent in 2020). Yet Southern Europe
now also surpasses the region-wide average (30.9 per
cent of seats held by women), just behind Western Europe
(33.4 per cent of seats held by women).
While Europe no longer tops the regional table, a number
of countries in the region have registered impressive gains
over the past 25 years. Since 1995, the strongest advances
in women’s representation in lower and single houses have
occurred in Andorra (+42.8 points), North Macedonia (+36.7
points), Belarus (+36.2 points), France (+33.1 points), Belgium
(+28.7 points), Spain (+28.0 points), Monaco (+27
.7 points)
and Portugal (+27
.0 points). All but two of these countries
– Belarus and Monaco – apply legislated quotas.Turning
to upper houses, the biggest post-1995 gains in women’s
representation have been made by Belgium (+35.8 points),
France (+27
.2 points), Spain (+26.4 points), Italy (+25.5 points)
and Germany (+20.0 points).
Spain’s Congress of Deputies re-elects its woman speaker in December 2019, following general elections in which 40% of seats were won
by women. Europe has seen a steady increase over the past 25 years in both the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women and the
number of women in leadership positions. © Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
4 Canada, House of Commons, Elect Her: A Roadmap for Improving
the Representation of Women in Canadian Politics: Report of the
Standing Committee on the Status of Women (2019).
5 Equal Voice, “Encouraging data: Number of federal women candidates
increased on average 9% across party lines since 2015”
, 3 October
2019. Available at https://www.equalvoice.ca/encouraging_data_
number_of_federal_women_candidates_increased_on_average_9_
across_party_lines_since_2015 (accessed on 22 January 2020).
8
In the last five years, women’s representation in lower or
single houses has increased by over 10 percentage points
in six European countries: France (39.5 per cent women,
+13.3 points), Belarus (40 per cent, +12.8 points), Armenia
(23.5 per cent, +12.8 points), Monaco (33.3 per cent, +12.5
points), Montenegro (29.6 per cent, +12.4 points) and Latvia
(30 per cent, +12.0 points).
In 2020, women hold 40 per cent or more of seats in the
single or lower houses in 10 countries in Europe: Andorra,
Belarus, Belgium, Finland, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. In 1995, only one country
(Sweden) surpassed this threshold. By 2015, the number had
increased to four (Finland, Iceland, Spain and Sweden).
No European country has achieved parity in parliament.
The Nordic countries continue to stand out both regionally
and globally for the relatively high share of women in their
parliaments: 43.9 per cent.Yet only three of them are close to
parity and Iceland saw its share of female parliamentarians fall
significantly (-9.5 points) following the most recent elections.
Although the Nordic countries do not apply legislated quotas,
and have not achieved full parity, they are justifiably considered
model societies with a genuine culture of equality gained
through long-standing efforts by the women’s movement
and a century of women’s participation. Likewise, their
outstanding results on women’s representation in parliament
can be attributed to initiatives by political parties, coupled with
prevailing socioeconomic, institutional and cultural factors.
The European countries with the lowest levels of women’s
representation in national parliaments (20 per cent or lower)
are Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Hungary, Liechtenstein,
Malta, Russian Federation and Turkey. Four of these apply no
gender quotas whatsoever, while the remainder have basic
voluntary party quota systems.
Gender quotas have helped to boost women’s participation
in parliament in most Balkan States. Legislated candidate
quotas apply in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,
Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. In
fact, North Macedonia has one of the highest shares of women
in its national parliament in the subregion – and in Europe as a
whole.The country serves as a prime example of an effective
high-level legislated quota system (40 per cent) with intentional
candidate placement on electoral lists (at least one female
candidate among the top three positions on the list).
The figures from European parliamentary elections in
2019 reveal gains in women’s representation of at least 5
percentage points across a number of countries: Switzerland
(+9.5 points), Ukraine (+8.9 points), San Marino (+8.3 points),
Portugal (+7
.4 points), Andorra (+7
.1 points), Estonia (+5.9 points),
Finland (+5.5 points) and Republic of Moldova (+5 points).
Finland stands out in terms of women’s political representation.
Women hold 45.6 per cent of seats in parliament. And in
December 2019, 34-year-old Social Democrat Sanna Marin
became the world’s youngest serving prime minister, heading
a coalition with four other parties led by women, all but one
of them under age 35. Finland has a long history of women’s
political representation. In 1906, before it gained independence,
it became the first country in the world to give full political rights
to women.
In 2019, a record number of women were elected to the
Swiss Parliament (41.5 per cent of seats in the lower house).
This leap of 9.5 points was likely influenced by the women’s
strike on 14 June 2019 – a strong popular movement coming
just months before to the elections, when an estimated half a
million women from all walks of life and all age groups took to
the streets in cities across the country demanding “higher pay,
greater equality and more respect”
.This impressive result can
also be attributed to the so-called “green wave”
, which saw
the Swiss Green Party gain a large number of seats, many
contested by women.
In the United Kingdom, the share of female
parliamentarians increased to 33.8 per cent (+2 points)
following the December 2019 elections in spite of the
challenging political environment. Many women stepped
back from politics amid reports of violence, abuse, and
even death and rape threats.6
Despite this, 34 per cent of
candidates standing in 2019 were women (up from 29.5 per
cent in 2017), reflecting the effects of civil society campaigns
and voluntary party quotas promoting gender parity.
Most European countries use either proportional or mixed
electoral systems that combine proportional and majoritarian
elements. Around the world, roughly twice as many women
are elected to parliament under proportional systems as
under majority systems.7
Proportional electoral systems,
Figure 6
Women in national parliaments, Europe, 1995–2020
13.2%
3.9
25.0%
29.9%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
14.5%
21.4%
18.4%
4.9
1.3
3.0
3.6
In Switzerland, unlike most European countries, women
only gained the right to vote in and stand for national
elections relatively recently (in 1971).This makes recent
progress all the more impressive: at the 2019 parliamentary
elections, women won over 40 per cent of seats in the
lower house and now occupy key positions across the
political spectrum.
6 BBC, “Women MPs say abuse forcing them from politics”
,
31 October 2019. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/
election-2019-50246969 (accessed on 27 January 2020).
7 Saskia Brechenmacher, Tackling Women’s Underrepresentation
in U.S. Politics: Comparative Perspectives from Europe (Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 2018).
9
public campaign funding and party-driven candidate selection
have all created an enabling environment for women’s
advancement. Yet gender quotas have proven to be the
most effective tool, with most European countries applying
either legislated or voluntary party quotas. Public funding
for political parties – a model adopted by several European
countries – can further incentivize parties to recruit and
nominate more female candidates.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Gender quotas igniting a cultural shift
Rwanda has long been the world leader in terms of
women’s representation in parliament, and it remains
the only country to have achieved more than 60 per cent
of seats held by women. At the turn of 2020, 24.4 per
cent of the region’s parliamentarians are women – an
impressive 14.6-percentage-point increase since 1995. It
is worth noting, however, that the pace of growth has
slowed to just 2 points over the past five years.
Women currently hold over 30 per cent of seats in the
lower or single house of parliament in 11 sub-Saharan
African countries.The share exceeds 40 per cent of seats
held by women in five of those countries: Rwanda (61.3 per
cent), South Africa (46.4 per cent), Senegal (43.0 per cent),
Namibia (42.7 per cent) and Mozambique (41.2 per cent).
In the last five years, three countries in the region have seen
the share of women in their lower or single houses grow
by 10 or more percentage points: Djibouti (26.2 per cent
women, +15.8 points), Ethiopia (38.8 per cent, +11 points),
and Somalia (24.4 per cent, +10.4 points).
At 26.2 per cent, Djibouti has registered one of the
region’s highest growth rates for women’s representation in
parliament in the past 25 years. The country elected its first
female parliamentarian in 2003 after a law requiring 10 per
cent female representation came into effect. Under a new
law, enacted in 2018, at least 25 per cent of members of the
National Assembly must be women and political parties must
have at least 25 per cent of both sexes on their candidate
lists. As a result, women accounted for about a quarter of the
112 candidates standing in the 2018 election, and currently
hold 17 out of 65 seats in the National Assembly. Following
the most recent elections, the Speaker announced plans to
create a women’s parliamentary caucus, as well as a gender
caucus including both male and female parliamentarians.
These groups are expected to play a key role in the adoption
of new legislation to combat gender-based violence and
advance gender equality.
In five sub-Saharan African countries, women account
for 10 per cent or less of parliamentarians. The situation
is especially concerning in Nigeria, where the share of
women in the lower house of parliament fell to 3.4 per cent
after the most recent elections (2.2 percentage points lower
than in the previous term). In the upper house, 12.3 per
cent of candidates were female and women won 7
.3 per
cent of seats (no change on the previous term). For women
in Nigeria, entering politics remains challenging for many
reasons, including a lack of funds and education, and poor
Figure 7
Women in national parliaments, Sub-Saharan Africa,
1995–2020
9.8%
24.4%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
11.2%
18.7%
14.8%
22.3%
1.4
3.6
3.9
2.1
3.6
A woman leaves the polling
station after casting her ballot
in April 2016 in Djibouti.The
country has witnessed one of
the biggest increases in women’s
representation in parliament in
recent years; women now hold
26% of parliamentary seats.
© Karim Lebhour/AFP
10
representation in party structures. Yet the current parliament
is expected to debate a gender equality bill that should
address the current underrepresentation of women in
political life.
Overall, progress has been sustained in most sub-
Saharan African countries since the 2019 elections. In
Namibia, women’s representation in the National Assembly
(the lower house of parliament) rose to 42.7 per cent – a
1.4–point increase on the previous election and substantially
higher than the 18.1 per cent figure recorded in 1995. This
progress can be attributed, in part, to the voluntary 50 per
cent gender quota adopted by the South-West People’s
Organization (SWAPO), which includes the so-called “zipper
system” for women on electoral lists. Similarly, the African
National Congress (ANC) – South Africa’s biggest political
party – has applied a 50 per cent gender quota for national
elections since 2009. As a consequence, the share of
women in the lower house of parliament increased from 20
per cent in 1995 to 46.3 per cent at the last election in 2019
(+4.6 points on the previous election).
Other sub-Saharan African countries holding elections in 2019
saw significant growth in women’s representation: Mauritius
(20 per cent women, +8.4 points) and Malawi (22.9 per cent,
+6.3 points). Both parliaments have recently elected their
first female Speakers: Mauritius in 2014 during the previous
legislature, and Malawi following the 2019 elections.
Most sub-Saharan African countries that have achieved
a high level of women’s representation have done so
through the use of quotas. Some 18 out of 47 countries in
the region use legislated gender quotas, and in 7 of these
countries (including Rwanda, Senegal and South Sudan),
quotas are enshrined in the constitution and implemented
through electoral law. Nine countries use a combined
system of reserved seats for women and gender quotas on
candidate lists. Political parties in some African countries
have also adopted internal rules on including a certain
percentage of women among their parliamentary candidates
(for instance in Botswana, Cameroon, Mozambique, Namibia
and South Africa).
Generally speaking, countries where women account for
less than 15 per cent of parliamentarians do not apply
gender quotas. There are, however, some exceptions to this
rule. In Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Liberia, enforcement of quotas is undermined by a lack of
statutory sanctions for non-compliance. In Mali, meanwhile,
the recently adopted quota system is due to be applied at
parliamentary elections in 2020 for the first time. Under the
new law, party lists that do not comply with the 30 per cent
gender quota will be rejected. The Central and West Africa
subregions are lagging behind the rest of the region, with
women’s representation in parliament standing at 20.4 per
cent and 14.2 per cent respectively.
It is worth noting that post-conflict transition in sub-
Saharan Africa has provided fertile ground for enhancing
women’s representation through robust and ambitious
legislated and voluntary party quotas. Substantial
progress has been made in Mozambique, Rwanda and
Namibia, and a similar trend has emerged more recently in
South Sudan.
Middle East and North Africa: Political change brings
more women into politics
Today, women across the MENA region enjoy the same
political rights as men.This has undoubtedly been the
biggest achievement of the past 25 years in this part of the
world. In 2020, the share of women in parliaments stands
at 16.6 per cent – a fourfold increase in representation
since 1995.And in 2019, the United Arab Emirates became
the region’s first country to achieve parity.
For women in the MENA region, acquiring the right to vote in
and stand for elections has been a slow process. In the early
2000s, long after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action, the Gulf countries became the last in the
region to grant full political rights to women. Until recently,
the region still included parliaments with no women
at all. This situation came to an end in 2017
, when the first
women were appointed to Qatar’s Parliament. Progress in
Gulf countries’ parliaments has also coincided with their
strengthened integration in inter-parliamentary relations.
When Saudi Arabia and Qatar joined the IPU, in 2003 and
2006 respectively, they had no female parliamentarians and
had not granted women the exact same political rights as
men. This issue was raised within the IPU on an ongoing
basis. Today, women hold 20 per cent of seats and 9.8 per
cent of seats in their respective parliaments. In the case of
Saudi Arabia, they have also gained the right to vote in and
stand for local elections.
Rwanda currently leads the way globally on female
representation in parliament. In 1995, just 4.3 per cent
of seats were held by women. A major shift came with
the enactment of the new constitution in 2003, under
which at least 30 per cent of parliamentary seats must be
reserved for women. By 2008, women held over half of the
seats in Rwanda’s Parliament, and the 2013 election took
the figure close to 64 percent.The share fell slightly, to 61
percent, after the 2016 election, but Rwanda can still lay
claim to being the only country in the world where female
representation tops 60 per cent. In addition, Rwanda’s
lower house has had a female presiding officer since 2008.
Rwanda’s share of women parliamentarians far surpasses
the 30 per cent threshold guaranteed in the constitution.
The combination of measures – 24 reserved seats for
women and a 30 per cent candidate quota on party
lists – should guarantee gender parity (40 women out of
80 members).Yet more women tend to get elected on
candidate lists than the minimum threshold. Moreover,
Rwanda has registered faster growth in women’s
parliamentary representation than anywhere else in the
world since 1995 (+57 percentage points). It is also seen
as a place where the socioeconomic and legal status of
women has improved over the past 25 years.
11
Advances in women’s parliamentary representation in
the MENA region in the past decade are closely tied to
the Arab Spring, the popular uprisings that occurred
across the region in 2011 and 2012. Between 1995 and
2010, the share of women in MENA national parliaments
grew at an average rate of 1–3 percentage points every five
years. Between 2010 and 2015, however, the growth rate
reached 6 percentage points – one of the biggest five-year
increases anywhere in the world since 1995, surpassed only
by 7
.8-point growth in the Pacific region in 1995–2000.
Countries throughout the region have enacted legal and
constitutional reforms, introducing quota systems to
guarantee female representation in parliament. Morocco
was the first to embark on this process, in 2002. It was
later followed by Iraq (2005), Sudan (2008), Saudi Arabia
(2011), Algeria, Jordan, Libya and Mauritania (2012), Egypt
and Tunisia (2014), and United Arab Emirates (2019). These
reforms have led to unprecedented progress in women’s
representation in politics in the region. The five MENA
countries that have achieved the greatest gains in terms of
women’s parliamentary representation since 1995 (Algeria,
Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates)
have all adopted gender quotas, including both legislated
candidate quotas and reserved seats (depending on their
electoral system).
In some of these countries, increased female
representation has led to the adoption of progressive
legislation. In 2016, for instance, a new law criminalizing
violence against women and sexual harassment came into
effect in Algeria. Tunisia followed suit in 2017 by passing its
first national law on eliminating all forms of violence against
women, including political violence. Yet women across the
region still face legal and social barriers that prevent them
from fully exercising their political rights. It remains to be
seen whether the newly elected parliaments will continue
on the path towards a more progressive political agenda.
At the latest elections, the share of women elected to
both parliaments was lower than in 2016 (-6.5 points in
Tunisia, and -5.8 points in Algeria). Despite these setbacks,
both countries are still in the top 6 in the MENA region for
women’s representation in parliament.
Elections held in the MENA region in 2019 produced
mixed results. Tunisia lost the most ground, seeing the
share of women parliamentarians decline from 31.3 per
cent in 2014 to 24.8 per cent in 2019. The country has a
very progressive electoral law (parity with alternating slots
for women and men on the electoral lists – the so-called
“zipper system”). Yet the number of female candidates
fluctuates because parties merely pay a fine for submitting
a non-compliant list, but can still register it. In 2019, only
14.5 per cent of candidates were women. The situation in
Tunisia is proof that political parties still play the role of
gatekeepers, even when they have to pay a price to stay
in power.
The United Arab Emirates registered the region’s biggest
gains, with a new quota set by presidential decree seeing
a rise from 22.5 per cent to 50 per cent of seats held by
women. The country had already achieved a first in the Arab
world when it elected a female Speaker in 2015. Under the
new parity quota system, if the number of elected female
candidates falls short of the required level, the remaining
seats are filled by appointment. In 2019, when the quota
was applied for the first time, 20 seats were reserved for
women. Of these, 7 were filled by elected candidates and
the remaining 13 by appointees. The policy is part of a
broader gender equality strategy that aims to enhance the
role of women in wider society.
Recent progress in the MENA region proves that
affirmative action can increase women’s representation,
but that it takes more to achieve sustainable change.
Campaigns promoting women’s participation in politics
can make such mechanisms more effective. In Jordan, for
instance, the National Committee for Women’s Affairs ran
an awareness campaign on the role of women in political
life ahead of the 2016 elections. The campaign, entitled
“Because she can ... the country deserves”
, failed to meet
its primary objective (increasing the number of reserved
seats for women to 23), but it made women’s political
participation part of the public debate. In 2016, women took
15.4 per cent of seats in Jordan’s House of Representatives
– the highest level in the country’s history. And in 2017,
the women’s movement scored a notable victory with a
successful campaign to repeal an article of Jordan’s penal
Figure 8
Women in national parliaments, MENA, 1995–2020
4.3%
6.6
3.0
3.1
16.6%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
3.4%
9.5%
6.5%
16.1%
0.5
-0.9
Kuwaitis demonstrate for women’s political rights in front of
Parliament on the day when legislation was adopted to grant women
the right to vote and to stand in elections in 2005. The granting of
political rights to all women, on an equal footing with men, across
the globe has been one of the greatest achievements of the past
25 years. © Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP
12
code that allowed perpetrators of sexual assault to escape
punishment if they married their victim.
In MENA countries with no quota systems, the share
of women in parliament remains below 15 per cent. In
several of these countries, women hold less than 10 per cent
of lower or single house seats: Qatar (9.8 per cent – four
women in the appointed Shura Council), Kuwait (6.3 per
cent), Lebanon (4.7 per cent), and Oman (2.3 per cent – two
women in the lower house, up from one in the previous
term, although women occupy 17
.4 per cent of seats in the
appointed upper house).
In Lebanon, the transitional period following the end of the
civil war in the early 1990s has been a missed opportunity for
enhancing women’s political participation. Despite a remarkable
rise in the number of female candidates in 2018 – 86 women
stood for office, up from 12 in 2009 – only 6 women currently
sit in the 128-member chamber (a slight increase from 4 in
2009). Most of the female candidates run as independents
without the support of traditional party structures, which
reinforces male dominance in Lebanon’s Parliament.
One of the key drivers of female participation in politics
in the MENA region is the acknowledgement of women’s
role in peace processes. As part of the Sudanese transition
to democracy, a Transitional Legislative Council will be set
up to serve as an interim legislature of Sudan until the
elections scheduled for 2022. The Council will have no more
than 300 members, of which at least 40 per cent must be
women. Meanwhile, the Syrian Women’s Initiative for Peace
and Democracy has achieved notable success in addressing
some of the key barriers to formulating an agenda for peace
in the Syrian Arab Republic. The Syrian Women’s Advisory
Board to the UN Special Envoy to Syria, established in 2016,
is the first peace process facilitation initiative of its kind.
There is hope that women’s involvement in the peace- and
state-building processes will pave the way for sustained
women’s participation in political life in these countries.
As in other parts of the world, political violence is a fact
of life for many women in the MENA region. In Tunisia,
for instance, research into violence against women in
political parties has found that female politicians have faced
repercussions for attempting to report incidents of violence,
while male perpetrators from party structures had faced
none.8
Tunisia is the only country in the region to have
adopted a specific law against this type of violence. Although
this sends a positive signal, effective mechanisms and strong
political are required to ensure the law is enforced.
The MENA region is still experiencing an unprecedented
advancement of women’s rights and political empowerment.
The political developments that began in December 2010
have provided new opportunities to strengthen and expand
women’s rights and their representation in political life.
Although the share of women in MENA region parliaments
has grown at a slightly reduced pace in the last five years,
the institutional mechanisms for gender equality that have
been established may secure the much-needed presence of
women’s voices on the political scene.
Pacific: Stark contrasts and growing hope for growth
Women’s parliamentary representation in the Pacific
region has been historically low. Since 2010, the Pacific
has come bottom of the global list, behind the MENA
region. And despite substantial gains in a number of
Pacific countries over the past 25 years, it remains the
only region in the world to have a number of parliaments
without any women members.
The region-wide average has increased from 6.3 per cent in
1995 to 19.4 per cent in 2020 (+13.1 points), due in large part
to gains made in Australia and New Zealand (30.5 and 40.8
per cent women in their respective lower and single house).
Without these two countries, the figures stand at 2.3 per
cent in 1995 and 6.4 per cent in 2020 (+4.1 points).
Women were largely absent from Pacific region parliaments
in 1995, accounting for less than 10 per cent of the
membership of lower and single houses of parliament, with
the notable exception of New Zealand (21.2 per cent of seats
held by women).
Twenty-five years later, three countries in the region still have
no women in their national parliaments: the Federated
8 Yasmina Chouakri, Violence Against Women in Political Parties:
Analysis of the Situation in Tunisia (National Democratic Institute,
2019). Available at https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/02-12-2019_
Tunisia%20%281%29.pdf (accessed on 22 January 2020).
In 2012, 28-year-old Asma al-Marwani was elected as
Algeria’s youngest female parliamentarian. She was
re-elected for a second term in 2017. The position of
female incumbent is rather new to the Arab political
scene and has undoubtedly strengthened the position of
women in MENA region politics. Algeria was one of the
first countries in the region to adopt ambitious electoral
gender quotas. The system introduced in 2012 has
substantially increased Algerian women’s representation
in parliament over the last two terms (32 per cent
in 2012–2017, 25.8 per cent since 2017). A women’s
parliamentary caucus has been created to amplify female
voices in parliament. Yet political parties need to play a
more active role in promoting women in Algerian politics.
Figure 9
Women in national parliaments, Pacific region, 1995–2020
7.8
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
14.1%
15.3%
13.2%
15.7%
19.4%
6.3%
3.7
0.4
2.1
-0.9
13
States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea andVanuatu. In
1995, by contrast, the Pacific region was home to 4 of the 10
countries worldwide with no women representatives: Kiribati,
Micronesia, Palau and Papua New Guinea.
Between 2012 and 2016, Papua New Guinea had two female
parliamentarians – the largest representation in the last 25
years, gained through extensive grassroots organizing among
women in support of female candidates. In December
2011, the Equality and Participation Bill was brought before
parliament in a bid to introduce 22 reserved seats for
women. However, the required qualified majority for a
constitutional amendment was not reached and the reserved
seats for women were not introduced.
In 2020, only 6 out of 14 countries in the region have women
holding at least 10 per cent of seats in their lower or single
house of parliament: New Zealand (40.8 per cent), Australia
(30.5 per cent), Fiji (19.6 per cent), Palau (12.5 per cent),
Nauru (10.5 per cent) and Samoa (10 per cent).
On a more positive note, between 2015 and 2020, the
Pacific region has recorded one of the world’s highest
growth rates in representation of women in lower or
single houses of parliament, at 3.7 percentage points.
This could indicate that the women’s movement is gradually
becoming more active, and that traditional perceptions of
women’s role in society are beginning to change. In the past
five years, several countries have experienced relatively fast-
paced growth: Palau (+12 points), New Zealand (+9.4 points)
and Tuvalu (+7
.4 points).
Other Pacific Island States, such as Solomon Islands (+4
points), Samoa (+3.9 points) and Tonga (+3.8 points), have
registered smaller increases in the last five years. In Samoa
and Solomon Islands, legislated quotas have largely been
responsible for this modest growth. In the 2019 elections
in the Solomon Islands, 2 women parliamentarians were
elected out of a field of 25 female candidates – the highest
share of women in parliament since the country gained
independence in 1978. Only four women have ever been
elected to parliament in the independent Solomon Islands.
In addition to the Solomon Islands, four other countries
in the region held parliamentary elections in 2019:
Australia, Marshall Islands, Nauru andTuvalu.
Over the past 25 years, women’s representation has grown
at a quicker pace in Australia than in any other country in the
region. In 1995, women held 8.8 per cent of seats of the
House of Representatives (the lower house). As of 2020,
that figure stands at 30.4 per cent.The fastest growth rate
occurred between 1995 and 2000, when the share of women
reached 20 per cent for the first time.The pace has slowed
somewhat since then.The 40 per cent voluntary quota adopted
by the Australian Labor Party in 2002 has made an important
contribution. Most recently, a civil society movement pushed
women’s representation in the lower chamber above the 30 per
cent mark for the first time at the 2019 elections. In the Senate
(the upper house), women took 37 seats in 2019 (up from 30),
edging the chamber close to parity at 48.7 per cent women.
In Nauru, the share of women in parliament almost doubled
at the 2019 elections, from 5.3 per cent to 10.5 per cent
– the highest percentage in the last 25 years. Plans to
introduce reserved seats for women were debated during
the constitutional reform process in 2006, but to no avail.
In Tuvalu and Marshall Islands, the 2019 elections saw the
number of women in parliament fall, bucking the region-wide
upward trend.
Women face a number of barriers to participation in political
life in the Pacific region. Local traditional chiefs are mostly
male, and that same tendency extends to national politics.
Moreover, the region’s dispersed geography makes it all the
more difficult for women to campaign, as they often cannot
afford extensive travel and bear most family and care-giving
responsibilities. The Pacific also has one of the highest levels
of gender-based violence against women, which further
hampers their full participation in all areas of life.
Asia: Consistently slower growth
Since 1995, the share of women in Asian parliaments as
a whole has increased from 13.2 per cent to 20 per cent.
At 6.8 percentage points, Asia has recorded the slowest
growth rate of any region since the adoption of the
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
With a few exceptions, small gains and frequent setbacks
have seen Asia lose ground relative to other regions. In
1995, Asia ranked second, tied with Europe. In 2020, it has
dropped to fourth out of six regions, having lost momentum
as other regions gained it.
As of 2020, only three countries – Timor-Leste (38.5
per cent), Nepal (32.7 per cent) and Uzbekistan (32 per
cent) – have surpassed the 30 per cent mark for women’s
representation. A handful of other countries have exceeded
the 25 per cent share of seats held by women in single or
lower houses of parliament and come close to the critical
mass threshold: Philippines (28 per cent), Lao People’s
In Fiji, women’s representation has grown significantly
in the past 25 years, from 4.3 per cent in 1995 to 19.6
per cent in 2020 (+15.3 percentage points). At the most
recent elections, held in 2018, women were key players as
both voters and candidates. The election saw women take
a record number of seats in parliament, due in part to an
increase in the number of female candidates: 56 women
stood in 2018 (23.8 per cent of candidates), up from 44
in 2014 (17
.8 per cent). The 2014 appointment of Fiji’s
first female Speaker was almost certainly an influencing
factor. The Speaker was considered a role model and
encouraged more women to become engaged in political
life. She introduced a mandate to mainstream gender
equality in the standing orders of parliament. She also
laid the groundwork for the establishment of a women’s
caucus, which eventually came into being in 2019, bringing
together female parliamentarians from across the political
spectrum to advance gender equality.
14
Democratic Republic (27
.5 per cent), Kazakhstan (27
.1 per
cent), Afghanistan (27 per cent) and Viet Nam (26.7 per cent).
The share of women in Asian parliaments grew at its fastest
rate between 2005 and 2010 (+3.5 points), due largely to
the introduction of legal measures to improve women’s
representation in Nepal (30 per cent reserved seats) and
Kyrgyzstan (30 per cent gender quotas). By contrast, the
growth rate has been just 1.5 percentage points over the
past 10 years.
The region’s champions, Nepal andTimor-Leste, reached
the minimum threshold of 30 per cent due to post-
conflict legal reforms. In Nepal, the 1990 Constitution
required at least 5 per cent of candidates for elections to
the House of Representatives to be women. The interim
constitution of 2007 set a binding 33 per cent quota,
applicable to all political parties. This was later confirmed
in the 2015 Constitution. Since the quota was first applied
in 2007
, women have consistently held at least 30 per
cent of seats. Women have also made strides in political
leadership. In 2015, Bidhya Devi Bhandari became Nepal’s
first ever female president. In the same year, Nepal achieved
another first when a woman was elected as Speaker of the
Constituent Assembly. Under the 2015 Constitution, the
position of Speaker or Deputy Speaker of each chamber of
the Federal Parliament must be held by a woman. To date, no
woman has been elected Speaker since Nepal’s Parliament
was established in 2018.
Timor-Leste has adopted some of the world’s most
progressive legislated quotas for women. Discussions on
quotas began during the post-conflict period of 1999–2001,
under the United Nations Transitional Administration in East
Timor (UNTAET), and they were eventually adopted in 2006.
An elderly Timorese woman shows her inked finger as she casts her vote in parliamentary elections in July 2012, when a record 38.5% of
seats were taken by women thanks to an effective quota system. Timor-Leste remains one of the lead Asian countries in terms of women’s
political participation. © Valentino Dariell de Sousa/AFP
Figure 10
Women in national parliaments, Asia, 1995–2020
13.2%
3.5
20.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
% women growth rate (5-year span)
14.6%
18.5%
15.0%
18.5%
1.5
0.4
0.0
1.4
15
Since 2007
, when the 30 per cent quota was applied for the
first time, women have consistently held 27
.7 per cent or
more of parliamentary seats. In 2011, the electoral law was
revised to include a woman in every three slots on candidate
lists. The 2012 elections returned a record 38.5 per cent
women to parliament, and female candidates took the same
share of seats in 2018.
A similar state-building process has yielded impressive
gains in Afghanistan. In 2004, the country adopted a new
constitution that includes a provision for 27 per cent of
seats reserved for women in the lower house. If female
candidates do not win enough seats directly, the remaining
seats are allocated to women candidates achieving the
highest number of votes until the 27 per cent mark is
reached. Following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001,
Afghanistan came under concerted international pressure
to include women in politics. However, genuine acceptance
and understanding of the importance of women’s political
representation will take time. The ongoing threat of violence
and the volatile security situation pose additional challenges
to advancing democracy and gender equality.
In the past five years, the biggest gains in women’s
representation among lower and single chambers
have come in Uzbekistan (+16 points, 2019),Thailand
(+10 points, also 2019) and Bhutan (+8.5 points, 2018).
In Uzbekistan, gender quotas were introduced into electoral
law in 2004. The share of women in parliament has increased
dramatically as a result. At the 2019 elections, 41 per cent of
nominated candidates were women and all parties exceeded
the 30 per cent threshold. Women now hold 32 per cent of
seats in the lower chamber.
In 2019,Thailand held its first elections since the 2014
coup d’état.They were also the first elections under the
2017 Constitution which, although lacking gender quota
requirements, states that political parties must consider gender
equality before nominating candidates for election (Art. 90).
In Bhutan, which last held elections in 2018, the share of
female parliamentarians increased from 6.4 per cent to a
record-high 14.9 per cent. By contrast, there were no women
in parliament in 1995. Women face a number of barriers to
participation: all candidates must have a university education,
and civil servants are disqualified from standing for elected
office (many university-educated women work as civil
servants). In addition, boys have long outnumbered girls in
secondary and higher education. The Bhutan Network for
Empowering Women (BNEW), a civil society organization,
is seeking to address these problems through networking
and building women’s capacities and leadership so they can
participate as equal partners in Bhutan’s social, economic and
political life.
Four Asian countries (Brunei Darussalam, Iran, Maldives
and Sri Lanka) have yet to pass the 10 per cent mark for
women’s representation in their lower or single houses
of parliament. Iran currently has a higher share of women
in its parliament than at any point in the last 25 years. In
Maldives, where the last election was held in 2019, women
now hold a smaller percentage of parliamentary seats than in
1995 (from 5.9 per cent to 4.6 per cent). The highest share,
12 per cent, was recorded between 2005 and 2008. In Sri
Lanka, meanwhile, women’s representation in parliament
remains unchanged from its 1995 level (5.3 per cent). All four
of these countries have yet to embrace the idea of increasing
women’s participation in all areas of life and building
momentum for women’s political empowerment as part of
their political transition.
Lessons learned
The 25th
anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action is an opportunity to pause and reflect
on how far women’s parliamentary representation has
advanced in the last quarter of a century. In 2020, there
is no country where women cannot take part in the
electoral process on an equal footing with men. In 1995,
a few countries had not granted women the right to
vote or stand for elections. In 1995, women held 11.3 per
cent of parliamentary seats worldwide.Today, they hold
almost 25 per cent. Quotas – either legislated or applied
voluntarily by political parties – have been adopted in
every region of the globe, and have been instrumental in
driving progress in women’s political participation.
Quotas pave the way to gender parity
As women’s political representation has risen steadily
over the past 25 years, so expectations have grown in
ambition. Achieving a critical mass of 30 per cent women
is no longer the objective. In 2020, quotas are seen merely
as a stepping stone to full parity in the future. Right now,
women hold 40 per cent or more of parliamentary seats
in 24 countries. Three countries – Bolivia, Cuba and United
Arab Emirates – have achieved parity in their lower or single
houses, while in Rwanda, 60 per cent of parliamentarians
are women. The credit for this paradigm shift lies with
pioneering countries that began adopting gender equality
measures long ago, and today are increasingly ambitious
Kazakhstan has no legislated gender quotas. Since
the country regained independence in 1991, however,
state policy has aimed to provide legislative support
to women. Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian
country to establish a national entity to promote gender
equality (the National Commission on Women, Family
and Demographic Policy). Adopted in 2009, the Law on
State Guarantees of Equal Rights and Opportunities for
Men and Women governs gender policy. Kazakhstan also
adopted a Gender Equality Strategy 2006–2016. It seems
that the government’s commitment to promoting gender
equality may have had a positive impact on women’s
representation in parliament, which reached 27
.1 per
cent in 2020 (up from 13.4 per cent in 1995). In 2019, the
country elected its first female Senate Speaker.
16
and persistent in their implementation. Europe and the
Americas – regions with the longest history of applying
quota mechanisms – are the undisputed leaders in terms
of women’s representation. In the Americas, the share of
female parliamentarians has already passed the symbolic
30 per cent mark, and Europe is just 0.1 percentage points
short of reaching the same milestone.
Experience from various countries shows that quotas work
when they are accompanied by ambitious targets and
strong implementation mechanisms – and when they are
combined with other measures. These include incentives
that encourage political parties to recruit and nominate
women, policies that level the playing field in access to
funding, and civil society and media outreach campaigns that
raise awareness about the importance of gender equality in
politics.
Political transition builds momentum
In many parts of the world, women have gained political
strength in times of political transition and post-conflict
contexts – in Namibia, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa and
Timor-Leste, and more recently in South Sudan and the
MENA region. By playing their part in liberation movements,
peaceful protests and peacebuilding efforts, women have
paved a path into politics. Looking to the future, the 40 per
cent female quota for Sudan’s Transitional Legislative Council
is expected to translate into sustained political engagement
for women.
Women suffer some of the worst impacts of war, including
gender-based and sexual violence. They are also key players
in peaceful conflict resolution and restoring justice in post-
conflict areas.9
As 2020 marks the 20th
anniversary of UN
Security Council resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and
Security, there may be renewed momentum to strengthen
women’s role in peacebuilding and political transition
processes.
Women’s influence in parliament matters
Gender equality in politics is not only about numbers.
The positions that women occupy in parliament are also
indicative of their influence in decision-making and ability
to set the direction of parliamentary work. Women are still
underrepresented in parliamentary leadership roles: 20.5 per
cent of Speakers are women, compared with 24.9 per cent
of parliamentarians.
Women’s influence is often amplified by women’s
parliamentary caucuses. Today, 156 formal or informal
women caucuses exist in parliaments. They have proven
essential in advancing women’s perspectives and specific
needs in parliamentary processes and work environments.
Women’s caucuses bring together female parliamentarians
across party lines to devise a common agenda; this also
tends to rally male allies. They often work closely with
women’s groups to bring the voices of grassroots women
to the decision-making table, calling for legal reforms and
budget allocations that promote women’s rights and gender
equality.
Parliaments must be gender-sensitive
Parliaments, as institutions, have a key role to play in shaping
processes and work environments that are conducive to
women’s full participation.
Yet gender sensitivity is about more than just ensuring
women can fully participate. It is also about guaranteeing
that parliamentary outcomes advance gender equality in
society. While research shows that women in parliament
have promoted the gender equality agenda, this objective
must be understood as the responsibility of the institution as
a whole – and of men and women alike.
Parliamentary leadership brings about change
Male Speakers have proven to be key allies in enhancing
women’s influence in parliament and in shaping more
gender-sensitive institutions. In New Zealand, for instance,
male Speakers have introduced reforms to cater to the
needs of parliamentarians with care-giving responsibilities.
In Kenya, meanwhile, parliamentarians can now bring their
young children with them when travelling for committee
work, and parliament has designated a senior-level gender
focal point. And in 2019, male Speakers championed the
creation of women’s caucuses in Fiji and Djibouti.
Likewise, female Speakers have undertaken bold reforms
to advance gender equality in parliament and served as
crucial role models for other women. Their legacy includes
setting quotas for women in the leadership of parliamentary
committees (Uganda), including gender mainstreaming in
the standing orders of parliament (Fiji), and setting up a rural
women’s parliament (Namibia).
The way forward
Legislators, governments, political parties and civil
society must adopt a holistic approach to gender
equality in politics. Shifting the focus from women
themselves to the role of institutions and men in
opening up access to women, and advancing the gender
equality agenda, should help to accelerate progress.The
trends below could play a key role in advancing gender
equality in politics.
Gender parity as the norm
Gender quotas have been gradually revised upwards
towards full parity. The objective now should be for all
countries to adopt a legislated quota requiring 50 per cent
women’s representation in parliament by 2030. Doing so
would mark an important step towards equality in political
9 Christina Bache, Women’s role in peace processes, (FEMM Committee,
European Parliament, 2019). Available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL_STU(2019)608869.
17
life. In 2016, an IPU resolution called on parliaments to set
a deadline by which at least 30 per cent of seats should
be held by women, and a further deadline by which that
proportion should reach 50 per cent.10
This approach
was supported in a recent joint statement by the IPU
and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women.11
In order to be effective, quotas should not only set ambitious
goals, but also be designed in a way that delivers results,
with clear sanctions for non-compliance. Since becoming a
candidate is only the first step towards electoral success,
additional measures are needed that allow women to be pre-
selected into winnable seats or winnable positions on lists
(the so-called “zipper system”). Similar provisions could also
be set for women in local government and in the executive.
Creating an enabling environment: strong gender-
responsive policies and mechanisms
Today, women in many parts of the world are facing a
backlash against their hard-won human rights. As this
movement undermines implementation of the gender
equality principle as a whole, strengthening national
mechanisms for gender equality has become an urgent
priority. Governments and parliaments must ensure that
national strategies incorporate a gender perspective and
that gender-responsive legislation, budgets and policies are
adopted and implemented. Right now, 2.5 billion women
and girls still live in jurisdictions with laws that discriminate
against them. Repealing and reforming these laws should be
a priority in the years ahead. Likewise, governments should
shape policies that promote equal access to resources –
including property, inheritance and social benefits – and
make it easier to balance work with the demands of
caregiving and household responsibilities. All of this would
create an enabling environment for greater women’s
representation in political decision-making.
Political parties opening the gate to gender equality
Political parties are often the gatekeepers of women’s political
participation.12
Women in political parties, especially those
campaigning for election, face a range of barriers.These
include direct and indirect gender-based discrimination in
party procedures and practices, a lack of gender sensitivity in
candidate selection and outreach, and inequitable distribution
of party resources among candidates. Measures such as
party quota systems, dual leadership and gender rotation in
leadership positions, and the creation of women’s sections
within political parties would all help to ensure that parties
pursue gender-responsive policies. In order to achieve greater
gender balance within their structures, political parties could
carry out internal gender equality audits with the support of
NGOs and external experts. Likewise, they could arrange
special training sessions to develop the skills of women
candidates, and appoint experienced female party members,
including those in elected office, to mentor women at the
beginning of their political careers. Parties could also consider
setting up a separate electoral campaigning fund for women
candidates, and writing such a fund into their rule books.
Parliamentary environment: building gender sensitivity
and zero tolerance towards sexism and violence against
women
Parliaments around the world were originally designed as
male-dominated bodies. For that reason, they are typically
unsuited to the needs of women. That has not necessarily
12 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Handbook on
Promoting Women’s Participation in Political Parties (OSCE Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Warsaw, 2014).
10 IPU,The freedom of women to participate in political processes fully,
safely and without interference: Building partnerships between men
and women to achieve this objective. Resolution adopted unanimously
by the 135th
IPU Assembly (Geneva, 27 October 2016). Available at
http://archive.ipu.org/conf-e/135/item4.pdf.
11 United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women and IPU, Women’s political leadership: Striving for balance:
50/50 by 2030, Joint Statement (Geneva, 8 March 2019). Available
at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.
aspx?NewsID=24279&LangID=E.
Women parliamentarians make
a statement on unacceptable
sexist acts during a special
session in the Ukrainian
Parliament in Kyiv, May 2019.
© Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto
18
changed as the number of women in parliament has
increased. Women still bear much of the responsibility for
family and household duties. The prospect of parliamentary
debates lasting into the evening and the early hours may
deter them from entering politics. Moreover, parliamentary
infrastructure is not adapted to women, especially those
who are breastfeeding infants or caring for young children.
Parliaments can take a number of steps to reform male-
centric work practices and structures and shape a more
family-friendly and gender-sensitive work environment.
The IPU provides support to national parliaments wishing
to conduct a gender sensitivity assessment. Parliaments
can refer to the 2012 IPU Plan of Action for Gender-
sensitive Parliaments and the associated self-assessment
methodology for guidance on this matter. Several parliaments
have already taken steps in this regard. Recently, in the
United Kingdom, a 2018 self-assessment exercise prompted
the House of Commons to introduce proxy voting for
parliamentarians on parental leave.
Violence in politics has been central to debates around
women’s participation in political processes for many years.
According to IPU data from the 2016 Issues Brief, Sexism,
harassment and violence against women parliamentarians,
44.4 per cent of surveyed female parliamentarians said they
had received threats of death, rape, beatings or abduction
during their term of office. Violence and harmful norms
can silence women’s voice, block their representation
and hinder their full participation, even when formal
institutions and laws guarantee equality. Violence has a
dissuasive effect and undermines efforts to recruit women
as candidates. In order to tackle this phenomenon, an
increasing number of countries have adopted laws and
policies to eliminate all forms of violence against women
in politics. Mexico is the most recent example. Parliaments
and political parties should adopt policies to combat sexual
harassment, including effective complaint mechanisms and
penalties for offenders. Female and male politicians must
unite their efforts to shape and promoting an institutional
culture that offers a safe and secure working environment
for all. In 2019, the IPU published guidelines for parliaments
on how to address this scourge.13
Mainstream and social media: threat or opportunity?
Research into the media coverage of female candidates
and politicians shows that under- and misrepresentation
of women in the media adversely affects women’s
aspirations and electoral success.14
National parliaments
13 IPU, Guidelines for the elimination of sexism, harassment and violence
against women in parliament (2019). Available at https://www.ipu.org/
resources/publications/reference/2019-11/guidelines-elimination-sexism-
harassment-and-violence-against-women-in-parliament.
14 Amanda Haraldsson and Lena Wängnerud, “The effect of media
sexism on women’s political ambition: evidence from a worldwide
study”
, Feminist Media Studies, Volume 19: 2019, Issue 4. Available at
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777
.2018.1468797
.
A woman holds a sign reading “We march today for the planet! Neither women nor Earth are a territory to conquer!” at a climate strike in
Quito, Ecuador, in September 2019, amid a global movement led mainly by young women. © Rodrigo Buendia/AFP
19
can push back against this trend by enacting legislation
that encourages positive treatment of women in the
media and promotes gender equality in the public
sphere. Parliaments could also initiate educational media
campaigns that combat gender stereotypes, as well as
introducing a rule that requires political parties to ensure
gender parity in electoral broadcasts.
At a time of gender bias in mainstream media, social media
could level the playing field for women’s electoral success.
Social media campaigns are considerably cheaper than
conventional campaigning, and allow candidates to talk
directly to the public. Yet social media also exposes women
candidates and politicians to new forms of violence. A
strong regulatory and legal framework that requires social
media platforms to track and combat online abuse against
women is therefore necessary. Sexist speech should be
treated as a form of hate speech, including when it happens
online. Sexist speech undermines women’s participation
in politics and, ultimately, democracy. Likewise, female
candidates who receive training on safe social media use
are both more likely to achieve electoral success and less
likely to be exposed to these risks.
New political stakes, a new generation of women?
As politicians and the general public feel the effects
of the pressing climate crisis, female parliamentarians
have a special role to play. With research showing that
women’s representation in national parliaments leads
countries to adopt more stringent climate policies,15
there
may be new space for women to be game changers. The
climate emergency could prove to be a motivation for new
generations of women to engage in politics.
Young women are the least represented of all age and
gender groups in national parliaments, and the share
of young parliamentarians is rising faster among men
than women. Women under age 40 only hold 5 per
cent of parliamentary seats.16
Parliaments and political
parties can play a key role in supporting young women’s
political participation, for instance through specific
empowerment programmes, or by enabling young women
to access leadership positions and providing training and
mentoring opportunities. The introduction of youth quotas,
accompanied by a provision for gender parity, would go a
long way to improving the age/gender balance in politics.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, and in response
to the push-back against many hard-won women’s rights,
successfully mobilizing young generations of women could
have a transformative impact on female participation in
politics, thereby safeguarding existing rights and achieving
new ones. Alliances, including men and boys pursuing a
feminist agenda, are vital for achieving progress. But these
movements will only alter the political landscape if they are
supported and adequately resourced.
Growing demand for a new kind of politics should also open
up opportunities for young people, and those from more
diverse backgrounds – men and women alike – to enter
political life. Governments can only pursue policies that
advance equality and social justice if an equal voice is given
to those who have long been left behind. Gender parity
and diversity in representation – including age and ethnic
diversity – means better decision-making and has great
potential to strengthen trust in democracy and institutions.
15 Astghik Mavisakalyan andYasharTarverdi, “Gender and climate
change: Do female parliamentarians make difference?”
, European
Journal of Political Economy, vol. 56 (January 2019). Available
at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S0176268017304500.
16 IPU, Youth participation in national parliaments: 2018. Available at
https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/reports/2018-12/youth-
participation-in-national-parliaments-2018.
20
Annex
Women in single and lower houses of parliament, 1995 vs. 2020*
Country % of women in 1995 % of women in 2020 % point change
1 Rwanda 4.3 61.3 57
.0
2 United Arab Emirates 0.0 50.0 50.0
3 Andorra 3.6 46.4 42.8
4 Bolivia (Plurinational State of) 10.8 53.1 42.3
5 Ethiopia 2.0 38.8 36.8
6 North Macedonia 3.3 40.0 36.7
7 Belarus 3.8 40.0 36.2
8 Ecuador 4.5 39.4 34.9
9 Mexico 14.2 48.2 34.0
10 France 6.4 39.5 33.1
11 Costa Rica 14.0 45.6 31.6
12 Senegal 11.7 43.0 31.3
13 Nicaragua 16.3 47
.3 31.0
14 Cuba 22.8 53.2 30.4
15 Belgium 12.0 40.7 28.7
” Dominica 9.4 38.1 28.7
17 Spain 16.0 44.0 28.0
18 Monaco 5.6 33.3 27
.7
19 Portugal 13.0 40.0 27
.0
20 Grenada 20.0 46.7 26.7
21 Djibouti 0.0 26.2 26.2
22 Uzbekistan 6.0 32.0 26.0
23 United Republic of Tanzania 11.2 36.9 25.7
24 Suriname 5.9 31.4 25.5
25 United Kingdom 9.2 33.9 24.7
26 Namibia 18.1 42.7 24.6
27 Burundi 12.3 36.4 24.1
28 Albania 5.7 29.5 23.8
29 El Salvador 10.7 33.3 22.6
30 Australia 8.8 30.5 21.7
31 South Africa 25.0 46.4 21.4
32 Italy 15.1 35.7 20.6
33 Angola 9.5 30.0 20.5
” Switzerland 21.0 41.5 20.5
35 Mauritania 0.0 20.3 20.3
” Singapore 3.7 24.0 20.3
37 Peru 10.0 30.0 20.0
” Republic of Moldova 4.8 24.8 20.0
” San Marino 11.7 31.7 20.0
40 Morocco 0.6 20.5 19.9
” Trinidad and Tobago 11.1 31.0 19.9
21
Country % of women in 1995 % of women in 2020 % point change
42 New Zealand 21.2 40.8 19.6
43 Philippines 8.8 28.0 19.2
44 Algeria 6.7 25.8 19.1
45 Cameroon 12.2 31.1 18.9
46 Kenya 3.0 21.8 18.8
47 Lesotho 4.6 23.3 18.7
48 Pakistan 1.8 20.2 18.4
49 Tunisia 6.7 24.9 18.2
50 Lao People’s Democratic Republic 9.4 27
.5 18.1
51 Romania 4.1 21.9 17
.8
52 Togo 1.2 18.7 17
.5
53 Malawi 5.6 22.9 17
.3
54 Armenia 6.3 23.5 17
.2
” Zimbabwe 14.7 31.9 17
.2
56 Lithuania 7
.1 24.1 17
.0
” Ukraine 3.8 20.8 17
.0
58 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4.5 21.4 16.9
59 Saint Lucia 0.0 16.7 16.7
60 Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 5.9 22.2 16.3
61 Dominican Republic 11.7 27
.9 16.2
” Tajikistan 2.8 19.0 16.2
63 Mozambique 25.2 41.2 16.0
64 Estonia 12.9 28.7 15.8
” Guinea 7
.0 22.8 15.8
66 Poland 13.0 28.7 15.7
67 Argentina 25.3 40.9 15.6
” Iraq 10.8 26.4 15.6
69 Fiji 4.3 19.6 15.3
” Republic of Korea 2.0 17
.3 15.3
71 Chile 7
.5 22.6 15.1
72 Latvia 15.0 30.0 15.0
73 Bhutan 0.0 14.9 14.9
” Turkey 2.4 17
.3 14.9
75 Guyana 20.0 34.8 14.8
76 Greece 6.0 20.7 14.7
77 Kyrgyzstan 4.8 19.2 14.4
78 Cambodia 5.8 20.0 14.2
” Cyprus 5.4 19.6 14.2
” Panama 8.3 22.5 14.2
81 Honduras 7
.0 21.1 14.1
” Israel 9.2 23.3 14.1
” Jordan 1.3 15.4 14.1
” Uruguay 7
.1 21.2 14.1
85 Cabo Verde 11.1 25.0 13.9
86 Paraguay 2.5 16.3 13.8
22
Country % of women in 1995 % of women in 2020 % point change
87 Kazakhstan 13.4 27
.1 13.7
88 Equatorial Guinea 7
.5 21.0 13.5
89 Bulgaria 13.3 26.7 13.4
” Mongolia 3.9 17
.3 13.4
” Niger 3.6 17
.0 13.4
” Slovenia 14.4 27
.8 13.4
93 Iceland 25.4 38.1 12.7
94 Austria 26.8 39.3 12.5
” Czech Republic 10.0 22.5 12.5
” Finland 33.5 46.0 12.5
” Palau 0.0 12.5 12.5
” United States of America 10.9 23.4 12.5
99 Mauritius 7
.6 20.0 12.4
100 Madagascar 3.6 15.9 12.3
101 Malta 1.5 13.4 11.9
102 Croatia 7
.9 19.2 11.3
103 Canada 18.0 29.0 11.0
104 Bangladesh 10.3 20.9 10.6
105 Thailand 6.1 16.2 10.1
” Zambia 6.7 16.8 10.1
107 Luxembourg 20.0 30.0 10.0
108 Congo 1.6 11.3 9.7
109 Barbados 10.7 20.0 9.3
110 Gabon 5.9 14.8 8.9
” Ireland 12.0 20.9 8.9
112 Viet Nam 18.5 26.7 8.2
113 Indonesia 12.2 20.3 8.1
114 Burkina Faso 5.6 13.4 7
.8
” Democratic Republic of the Congo 5.0 12.8 7
.8
116 Brazil 7
.0 14.6 7
.6
117 Colombia 10.8 18.3 7
.5
118 Sao Tome and Principe 7
.3 14.6 7
.3
119 Georgia 6.9 14.1 7
.2
” India 7
.2 14.4 7
.2
” Japan 2.7 9.9 7
.2
” Mali 2.3 9.5 7
.2
123 Turkmenistan 18.0 25.0 7
.0
124 Saint Kitts and Nevis 13.3 20.0 6.7
125 Liberia 5.7 12.3 6.6
” Malaysia 7
.8 14.4 6.6
” Sweden 40.4 47
.0 6.6
128 Eswatini 3.1 9.6 6.5
” Guatemala 12.5 19.0 6.5
” Kiribati 0.0 6.5 6.5
131 Kuwait 0.0 6.3 6.3
23
Country % of women in 1995 % of women in 2020 % point change
132 Denmark 33.5 39.7 6.2
133 Belize 3.4 9.4 6.0
” Slovakia 14.7 20.7 6.0
135 Antigua and Barbuda 5.3 11.1 5.8
” Jamaica 11.7 17
.5 5.8
137 Samoa 4.3 10.0 5.7
138 Ghana 8.0 13.1 5.1
139 Germany 26.3 31.2 4.9
” Nauru 5.6 10.5 4.9
141 Azerbaijan 12.1 16.8 4.7
142 Bahamas 8.2 12.8 4.6
143 Tonga 3.3 7
.4 4.1
144 Cote d’Ivoire 8.0 12.0 4.0
” Liechtenstein 8.0 12.0 4.0
” Solomon Islands 2.1 6.1 4.0
147 China 21.0 24.9 3.9
148 Comoros 2.4 6.1 3.7
” Guinea-Bissau 10.0 13.7 3.7
150 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 9.5 13.0 3.5
151 Marshall Islands 3.0 6.1 3.1
152 Syrian Arab Republic 9.6 12.4 2.8
153 Iran (Islamic Republic of) 3.4 5.9 2.5
154 Lebanon 2.3 4.7 2.4
” Russian Federation 13.4 15.8 2.4
156 Norway 39.4 41.4 2.0
157 Benin 6.0 7
.2 1.2
158 Botswana 10.0 10.8 0.8
” Gambia (The) 7
.8 8.6 0.8
160 Hungary 11.4 12.1 0.7
161 Netherlands 32.7 33.3 0.6
162 Micronesia (Federated States of) 0.0 0.0 0.0
” Papua New Guinea 0.0 0.0 0.0
” Sri Lanka 5.3 5.3 0.0
165 Yemen 0.7 0.3 -0.4
166 Chad 16.4 15.4 -1.0
167 Haiti 3.8 2.5 -1.3
168 Tuvalu 7
.7 6.3 -1.4
169 Maldives 6.3 4.6 -1.7
170 Vanuatu 2.2 0.0 -2.2
171
Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea
20.1 17
.6 -2.5
172 Seychelles 27
.3 21.2 -6.1
* Countries for which data for both 1995 and 2020 are available.
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