Who’s Leading the Race Towards Parliamentary Gender Parity?

Data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union shows the extent to which differences in gender equality in parliament exist between countries, with only four nations currently representing an even or almost even 50:50 split of men to women in their lower house of parliament. These are Andorra, Mexico, Bolivia and the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, there are only three countries worldwide with a higher ratio of women to men. These are Rwanda (63.8 percent share of women), Cuba (55.7 percent) and Nicaragua (55.0 percent).

A look at selected countries shows that gender parity in parliaments is lagging behind in European nations as well as in the United States, where only around 29 percent of House members where women most recently. In Europe, Scandinavian nations lead, like Sweden at 45 percent, Finland at 45.5 percent and Iceland at 46 percent. Spain follows suit with 44.3 percent. Lowlights in Europe include Hungary at 15.2 percent, Bosnia and Herzegovina at 19.1 percent and Bulgaria at 21.3 percent. However, Germany is not far ahead at 32.4 percent.

Globally, Nigeria was among the countries with the lowest female participation in parliament at 4.2 percent. Sri Lanka, Syria, Iran and Algeria all stayed below 10 percent. India reached 13.8 percent. The country is scheduled to up representation to 33 percent after its next census towards the end of the decade. Japan stood at a slightly improved 15.7 percent, but still towards the bottom of the ranking.