10 Countries That Are Leading the World for Women in Politics
March 10, 2021
Women’s representation in parliament has reached an all time high — but... it's still not great.
Women make up half of the world’s population and yet they are still largely excluded from politics and decision-making power.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a global organization of national parliaments, released its latest annual Women in Parliament report just a few days before International Women’s Day on March 8, and it indicated that the world is not yet on track to achieve gender equality in politics by 2030.
The good news is that women are steadily taking up more space in governmental leadership around the world, with more and more of them securing seats in national parliaments, and a good number of countries implementing parliamentary quotas to ensure fair representation of women.
Although this representation has reached a significant milestone — the global average of women in parliamentary positions now sits at 25.5%, reaching over a quarter for the first time in history — the IPU’s Secretary-General Martin Chugong said on the release of the report that the increase of women’s representation is not yet happening fast enough.
“While we celebrate and welcome this all-time high, we feel that progress is painstakingly, or even excruciatingly, slow,” said Chugong. “At the current rate, it will take another 50 years before we can achieve gender parity in parliament. And of course, we all agree that this is not tenable, it’s not acceptable.”
While we may still be a few decades away from seeing equal representation of women parliamentarians around the world, it is still important to celebrate the countries that are prioritizing gender equality in their governments.
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