How many women are in your parliament?

Intro text

Over the last 27 years, since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action by the United Nations in 1995, the number of women parliamentarians has more than doubled worldwide.

Yet, with a global average of only 26.2 percent in 2021, women’s representation in parliaments continues to be very low.

As of 2021, women have at least 30 percent of seats in parliament in only 29 of the 56 countries in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region, and 40 percent in only 17.

 
Women's participation in parliament in ...
 
 
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Forecast based on past trends

If changes continue at the current pace, this is how women's representation in parliament will look like by 2030.

We calculated this forecast by taking the average rate of improvement from 1995 to 2021 and projecting it into the future.

Forecast based on recent trends

If changes registered in the past five years continue, this is how women's representation in parliament will look like by 2030.

We calculated this forecast by taking the average rate of change in the past five years and projecting it into the future.

Best case forecast

If the situation improves similarly to the country performing best in the region, this is how women's representation in parliament will look like by 2030.

We calculated this forecast by taking the rate of improvement from the country performing best in the region and accelerating the change with this amount over five years and then keeping it constant.

Worst case forecast

If the situation deteriorates similarly to the country registering the worst drop in the region, this is how women's representation in parliament will look like by 2030.

We calculated this forecast by taking the drop rate in the country performing worst in the region and deteriorating the situation with this amount over five years and then keeping it constant.

 
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The global average for women’s representation in parliament has inched up from 14.1 to 26.2 percent in the last two decades. That is progress, but still well below the one-third threshold generally considered the minimum needed to shape law and policy for gender equality. Gender gaps are the widest in political and economic empowerment, while they have almost closed in other key measures of equality such as health and education. According to the 2021 Global Gender Gap Report, at the current rate of progress, it will take 145.5 years to close the gender gap in political empowerment and a staggering 267.6 years to achieve equal economic participation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately hit women and increased the global gender gap, which will require an extra 36 years – more than another generation – to be closed. The pandemic has further exposed women’s underrepresentation in decision-making: although women are at the centre of the COVID-19 response – e.g., as healthcare workers, educators and care providers, they represent only 24 percent of members of COVID-19 task forces worldwide, and only 18 percent of task-force leaders.

The Generation Equality Forum, which took place in Mexico City in March and in Paris from 30 June-2 July 2021, underlined the urgency of realizing the commitments made in the landmark Beijing Women’s Conference. It brought together governments, civil society, private sector, entrepreneurs, trade unions, artists, academia and social influencers to drive urgent action and accountability for gender equality. One of its six action coalitions, on Feminist Movements and Leadership, has launched a global acceleration plan to advance women’s leadership by 2026. The coalition calls for actions to address harmful social norms and gender stereotypes, defend civic space, including online, and develop and implement gender-transformative policies and regulations addressing women’s underrepresentation in decision-making. The coalition has committed to accelerate results through four core actions: increasing funding for women-led, girl-led and feminist-led movements and organizations; promoting and expanding civic space for women’s rights defenders, women peacebuilders, trans, intersex and non-binary people and people from marginalized communities; adopting transformative feminist approaches to policy-making; and creating safe and inclusive spaces to co-create decision-making processes.

After a decade of slow growth, women’s political empowerment (gender ratios in ministerial and parliamentary positions, and the ratio of years that women and men have served as presidents or prime ministers) has dropped or reversed in recent years, partly because of women’s lower tenure as heads of state. Women are also underrepresented as leaders in the legislative: globally, only 22 percent of parliamentary Speakers are women. As a result, the global gender gap in political empowerment has widened.

In the last decade, 52 countries and territories have raised the proportion of women in parliament. However, women occupy more than 30 percent seats in only 30 of these, despite the fact that this threshold was the internationally agreed minimum target set in 1990, emphasized in the Beijing Platform in 1995 and later in the Agenda 2030 in 2015. Among them are Iceland and Andorra with 47.6 and 46.4 percent respectively, Serbia with 40 percent, North Macedonia with 41.7 percent and Kosovo* with 35 percent. Moldova registered a record increase of almost 16 percent, from 24.8 percent in 2020 to 40.6 percent in 2021.

Several countries and territories have implemented measures to bolster the number of women in politics, as a result of sustained efforts by women’s networks in parliament and local assemblies and pressure from women’s rights advocates. The most notable legislation in this area has been electoral gender quotas for candidates in parliamentary and local elections.

's parliament compared to other parliaments in 2021
 
 

Twenty-six countries and territories have adopted electoral gender quotas ranging from 25 to 50 percent. In the Western Balkans, all countries and territories have amended electoral laws for national legislatures, introducing electoral gender quotas of at least 30 percent on electoral lists, while Serbia upped this to 40 percent in 2020. In 2000, France became the first country in the world to adopt a 50 percent electoral gender quota for the lower chamber of parliament. Malta introduced a 40 percent electoral gender quota for the first time in 2021.

However, when it comes to the effectiveness of such quotas in propelling women to the front lines of politics, the devil is in the details. In some countries, where the law is not specific enough, the leaders of political parties ignore it by simply naming women candidates to ineligible positions in the second half of their lists. In others, the proposed quotas are voluntary; even if mandatory, fines or penalties for defaulters are not strong enough to motivate real change. Furthermore, if quotas only apply to the lower house, progressive legislation for gender equality, designed by women entering parliament, often gets stuck in the upper house which remains heavily dominated by men.

Despite these challenges, quota measures do signal a commitment to gender equality. Some countries have managed to fix the loopholes that prevented them from being effective. For example, in Armenia and Montenegro the quota laws were amended in recent years to make sure women and men alternate on candidate lists. Election authorities in Greece and North Macedonia reject candidate lists that do not fulfil the quota requirements.

As of 2021, almost all countries and territories in the region that have adopted electoral gender quotas have seen an increase in the number of women in parliament. For instance, when the electoral gender quota in Armenia rose to 30 percent in 2020, women’s share of seats in parliament went up by nearly 12 percent. With the right mix of measures, quotas can accelerate progress towards gender parity in parliaments by 2030.

Quota legislation in Europe and Central Asia

 

Numbers do not however tell the whole story. In most countries, women entering electoral politics face an obstacle course – strewn with political parties dominated by men, lack of funding, gender stereotypes, and plain misogyny in politics, the media and society.

A recent World Values survey in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia showed that large numbers of people believe that "men make better political leaders than women do." In Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine, between 32 and 38 percent of those surveyed agreed with this view, while in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, 39 and 42 percent of respondents strongly agreed with it. Not surprisingly, campaign financing is among the most significant challenges faced by women in politics.

Gender-based violence is another major challenge for women aspiring to political careers. Globally, an estimated one in three women suffers violence from intimate partners or non-partners, a figure that has stayed stubbornly high over two decades, despite tremendous efforts – in laws, services, and funding – to tackle this scourge. Violence against women and girls has also taken malevolent new forms in cyberstalking and bullying, vicious online sexual naming and shaming and ferocious trolling: 38 percent of women and girls worldwide report having personally experienced online violence. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified different forms of violence against women and girls, with domestic violence increasing by up to 65 percent in countries in the UNECE region as an effect of lockdown and quarantine measures.

According to a UN report on violence against women in politics, women are especially a target because of their gender; sexist threats, sexual harassment and gender-based violence add a dangerous dimension to any opposition they face. Take, for example, the cases of Afro-Brazilian human rights defender and city councillor, Marielle Franco, the UK Labour Party MP Jo Cox, and Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres, who were murdered for their political beliefs and grassroots leadership. Serbia’s Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić, faces persistent sexist and homophobic portrayals in the media, which sets aside her skills and qualities and focuses on her personal life. Maia Sandu, Moldova’s first woman President, faced an onslaught of misogynistic and sexist comments during her campaign trail in 2020. In Montenegro, a recent study prepared by the Women’s Political Network with support from UNDP found that seven in ten women politicians experience some form of violence during their political mandate.

Women’s continuing responsibility for domestic and care work is another major obstacle to their entering political or public life. Before the COVID-19 crisis, women in the UNECE region spent on average 13 more hours per week in unpaid care activities compared to men. The pandemic lockdown measures, with extended closures of schools and childcare services, further widened the gender gap in unpaid work and led to many women losing or leaving paid work. Time-use surveys conducted in Europe and Central Asia show that during the first phase of the pandemic, a high share of women reported spending more time on at least one unpaid care activity, with gender disparities becoming more evident as the number of these activities increase. While employed men working from home picked up a higher share of unpaid work during the lockdown period, women still did much more of it than men. Much more needs to be done to address the care crisis unveiled by the COVID-19 pandemic: only 7.3 percent of total social protection and labour market measures adopted by governments worldwide to tackle the pandemic address unpaid care.

 

In addition to these barriers, there are other emerging challenges to gender equality. The political lurch to the right in countries around the world, led by conservative parties and ‘strongmen’ leaders espousing ultranationalist ideals, has given rise to a resurgence in patriarchal norms that has imperilled gender equality, human rights and social justice. Most disturbing is a backlash phenomenon against “gender ideology” that is rolling back women’s hard-won gains, especially in education, reproductive rights and protection from violence, and endangering the advances in rights for LGBTI people. This backlash is partly a response to the rising visibility of women and, with its anti-feminist nature, has growing and insidious impacts.

The recent war in Ukraine is posing additional challenges. Women, girls and people from marginalized communities are facing intense hardships when it comes to health, safety and access to food. Unpaid work has also increased consistently, especially for women, adding the volunteering dimension to care and domestic work. With men conscripted, women and girls have become heads of household providing with their work and income for their families, and leaders in local communities, volunteering to help those in need. However, this has not translated into their increased participation in decision-making, as women remain sidelined in formal decision-making processes in the humanitarian response and in peace processes.

The threats to women’s rights have changed and grown more complex since 1995. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, with its fallout throughout the region and the world, have worsened gender and intersectional inequalities and diminished women’s role as leaders and changemakers. We must intensify our efforts to counter these impacts – by turning laws and policies into action, investing much more in programmes for gender equality, rebuilding fragmented women’s movements, bridging gaps in intergenerational dialogue, supporting and enhancing women’s leadership in peace and recovery processes and fighting gendered social norms and entrenched patriarchy in all its forms.

Women in leadership must support and empower women everywhere to recover a sense of shared struggle and galvanize the energy that gave the world the Beijing Platform 27 years ago. Only then can we move women’s rights forward at a faster pace.

Let us join forces and forge alliances for women’s rights and leadership at all levels for an #EqualFuture.

About Equal Future

Why did UNDP create this platform?

We created Equal Future in 2020 as a testament to the progress women have made in politics over the 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action and a reminder of how much work remains to be done to achieve gender parity in parliaments. 

We have since updated Equal Future to show changes in the number of women in parliament in 57 countries and territories and in key laws and policies in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The data also shows the extent to which women have been excluded from formal decision-making processes during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis. 

Women’s equal access to leadership positions is intrinsic to advancing gender equality. UNDP has a longstanding record of working with parliaments, governments, local authorities, civil society and other actors to advance gender parity in decision-making. Equal Future brings together a wealth of data, information and stories to mobilize the public, governments and parliaments to help accelerate progress towards this goal.

With eight years to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, we need more tools to support data-driven analysis and hold governments accountable to their commitments to gender equality. By presenting some of this data visually, Equal Future aims to generate greater public awareness of the critical importance of these commitments.

Why did we select this region?

On this platform, we feature the progress of women’s participation in politics in 57 countries and territories. With the exception of Kosovo*, 56 of these belong to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). UNECE is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations established in 1947, which conducts five-year regional reviews of progress on global United Nations agreements. UNDP works in 18 countries and territories in the Europe and Central Asia region. Seventeen of these are also members of the UNECE region.

How did we select the key events?

The key events we highlight are snapshots of women’s political achievements and advances in national legislation over the past 27 years. Despite their significance, we do not assume any causation between these events and the progress made in women’s political participation.

We limited the range of events featured to changes in legislation, institutional development and achievements of pioneering women politicians. The impact of social movements, social norms on gender roles and power relations are critical to women’s political advancement but are harder to quantify and were therefore not included.

What is the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action?

In 1995, the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing produced the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, a 132-page blueprint for women’s rights minutely negotiated between governments and women’s groups from all over the world.

For more than a generation, the Beijing Declaration has been a lodestar for women’s movements and all other actors committed to gender equality. No other global UN agreement since has so comprehensively established the rights of women and girls as an inalienable part of human rights and freedoms. Although not binding on governments in the way UN conventions are, the Platform for Action from the Beijing Women’s Conference served as a foundation for transformative actions in countries worldwide for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Where did we source the data presented on Equal Future?

The Equal Future platform presents visualized data on the current proportion of women and men in national legislatures in the UNECE region and Kosovo, information about existing legislation for electoral gender quotas, and forecasts of the evolution of women’s representation in parliaments to 2030.

The data on the current proportion of women and men in national legislatures was sourced mainly from the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Statistics Division. The percentages refer to the representation of women and men in lower houses, to avoid inconsistencies in data comparisons between countries with unicameral and bicameral legislatures.

The information on existing gender quota legislation was drawn from desk research, mainly from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

The forecast data on the evolution of women’s participation in parliaments was based on past and recent trends and best- and worst-case scenarios.

All the information on the platform was collected between 30 June and 30 October 2019, between 1 March and 10 June 2021, and between 16 May and 27 June 2022.

Other sources include:

1. International databases: World Economic Forum, International Labour Organization;

2. Reports: Beijing+25 National Reports and UNDP Human Development Reports;

3. Websites: Legislation Online, European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Parliament, European Equality Law Network.

This essay is mainly based on data from Women’s leadership in decision-making in the ECE region, a note prepared by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) for the Beijing+25 Regional Review Meeting in Geneva, held on 29 and 30 October 2019.

How are women doing in the branches of government other than parliament?

Women’s advances in other branches of government and civil service are less systematically tracked, but the available data show that they run up against glass ceilings and glass walls. In 2020, women held more than 30 percent of ministerial positions in only 26 UNECE countries and more than 50 percent in only nine.

Still, some countries have made great strides. In Albania, the share of women in ministerial positions reached 56.3 percent in 2020, up from 30 percent in 2013. This dramatic increase resulted from the current government’s commitment to implementing a 2008 law on gender equality which stipulated a 30 percent quota for women in leadership positions in all public institutions. 

On the other hand, some countries are failing to uphold their progress. In Kazakhstan, the share of women in ministerial positions fell from 20 percent in 2013 to 9.5 percent in 2020. Furthermore, in most countries, women tend to predominate in the social sectors and are still a minority among ministers handling portfolios such as defence, economy or finance.

* References to Kosovo on this website shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999).