What Countries have Most Number of Women Parliamentarians?

Women representation in parliaments, government jobs, and in the private sector has been steadily increasing over the years. According to World Bank data, in the year 2019, the proportion of seats being held by women in national parliaments at the world level stood at around 24.637 percent. This is a major step forward as compared to 1990, when the proportion of seats being held by women at the world level was just 13 percent.

East African nation Rwanda had the highest proportion of women in the world in the national parliament. According to a website (https://data.ipu.org/women), 61.3 percent of seats in parliament are occupied by women in Rwanda. But the heavy presence of women in Rwanda’s national parliament could be attributed to the new constitution, which was enacted in 2003. As per the new constitution, 30 percent of the seats must be reserved for women.

Cuba occupies the second spot in terms of women’s presence in the parliament, holding an impressive 53.2 percent of the seats in the national parliament. Following Cuba, South American nation Bolivia is in the third spot, where women held 53.1 percent of the seats in the national parliament.

The Middle East nation, the United Arab Emirates, has done exceedingly well in the occupation of seats by women in parliament. The Arab nation is in fourth place, where women held 50 percent of seats in the country’s parliament. Mexico occupies the fifth spot where women parliamentarians occupy 48.2 percent seats.

The Central American nation Nicaragua is not behind in the presence of women in the nation’s parliament. It is in the sixth place where 47.3 percent of women are parliamentarians. The Nordic nation Sweden is in the seventh rank, where 47 percent of representatives are women in the country’s parliament.

The Caribbean nation Grenada occupies the eighth spot where women held 46.7 percent seats in parliament. South Africa is in the ninth place where women had 46.6 percent seats in parliament.

Andorra, a small nation in Europe, occupies the 10th position where women occupy 46.4 percent of parliament seats.

The overall representation of women in parliament in the South Asian region stood low. In India, women held just 14.4 percent of the national parliament seats, while Pakistan did much better at 20.2 percent. The figures in Nepal and Bangladesh were also decent at 32.7 and 20.9 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka and Maldives, the percentages stood at a dismal 5.3, 4.6 percent, respectively.

The United States surprisingly had a low level of representation, with just 23.6 percent of the seats in the national parliament being held by women. Meanwhile, its northern neighbour Canada was slightly ahead at 29 percent. Australia and New Zealand posted figures of 30.5 percent and 40.8 percent, respectively.

On the other side of the table countries like Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu where the female representation was 0 percent.

Below is a table showing countries with the percentage of women in the National Parliaments:

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