Half of the world’s population are women, but today women only hold 23% of all seats in parliaments and senates globally. And the most recent world rankings from the Inter-Parliamentary Union show that the countries doing well are not the ones you might expect.

Many of the big Western-style democracies are nowhere near the top. The UK currently ranks number 39 in the world with less than a third of the Houses of Commons and Lords being women. Australia is ranked 49 and Canada is ranked 62, both with just more than a quarter of female parliamentarians. The US ranks all the way down at 98; less than one in five seats in Congress are currently taken by women.

Yet some of the data is much more promising - and surprising. In the world’s top two countries for female representation, Rwanda and Bolivia, women now make up parliamentary majorities.

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While numbers of women are increasing overall - in 2000 women took a world average of only 13.8% of seats across both houses, 10% less than today - the pace of change is slow. At the current rate, 50:50 parity will not be reached for another 50 years.

(Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union)

Rwanda is number one

In every year since 2004, Rwanda has had more women in parliament than any other country around the world. For the last four years, it has had a record 64% of its lower house made up of women.

The roots of its high figures can be traced back to the devastating genocide of 1994. An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered within 100 days, with the killings and exodus cutting the population by about a third.

Many men in particular were killed or forced to flee, and records show that immediately after the genocide women astonishingly made up about 70% of the remaining population. Most of these women had not been educated and few expected to have a career outside the home, but the traumatic effects of the massacre changed things substantially.

President Kagame decided women’s labour would be needed to rebuild the shattered country, and promoted many top-down equality initiatives to that effect. As part of his efforts, the constitution of 2003 decreed that women should make up 30% "of posts in decision-making organs", including the lower and upper legislative houses.

In the House of Deputies, 24 of 80 seats have since been reserved for women. But in that first election, already women won significantly more than their assigned minimum, taking almost half of all seats. This represented a leap in women’s political representation of almost 20% in one year.

Strikingly, around a third of the top 30 countries in the global rankings are post-conflict states, including Angola, Uganda, Burundi, and Nicaragua. Parallels could be drawn with the stark leaps in gender equality experienced in Europe after both world wars. In the UK, women won the vote in 1918 having carried out 'men's' jobs during the First World War.

(Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union)

Latin American countries jump up the rankings

Despite Latin America’s high rates of violence and machismo - it is home to some of the world's highest rates of female murders and less than half of its female population earns an income) - it has taken giants strides in the direction of equality in political representation.

This year, of the top 10 countries around the world for women’s representation in parliament, four are from Latin America (Bolivia #2, Cuba #3, Nicaragua #5, Mexico #7).

As a region, the Americas have witnessed the greatest aggregate changes in this regard over the past 20 years. While in 2000 the region had an average of only 15% of women in the upper and lower legislative houses, today it is the second best in the world with almost one in three legislators being women. In recent years Latin America has also had more female presidents than any other part of the world, although Chile's Michelle Bachelet is currently the only one.

These parliamentary gains have followed widespread introduction of gender quotas from the late 1990s onwards. Gender quotas for elected office have now been adopted by 16 Latin American countries, and most are mandated by law, requiring political parties to nominate a minimum percentage of female candidates.

Argentina was a pioneer, being the first in the region to adopt quotas in 1991. It was also the first with a female president - Isabel PĂ©ron was elected in 1974.

Yet, it is Bolivia that truly stands out for its impressive leaps in women’s representation. While in 2000 only 12% of Bolivia's parliamentary seats were held by women, today women make up the majority, holding 53%. Quotas here have played a clear role. Since constitutional changes in 2010, Bolivian women must occupy at least half of all elected government positions. To ensure this parity, candidate lists must be drawn up by alternating between women and men; the “zipper” system.

(Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union)

Nordic region still at the top

Despite these impressive leaps, no region has touched the overall dominance of the Nordic countries. Since the year 2000, the region has consistently had an average of around two-fifths of its legislators being women.

Yet women’s political representation is no longer rising so rapidly. In fact, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have seen little change at all over the past two decades.

Unlike in Latin America, few countries in the region have mandatory gender quotas. Instead, women’s more equal representation can be attributed to broader levels of gender equality across society. The top four in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report, a ranking of countries on a wide range of gender equality measures, are Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Higher equality in the region stems from decades of reform. Strong child care provisions, flexible working options for parents, and lengthy paternity leave offerings have led to very high female labour force participation and allowed more women to rise to positions of leadership. While there may not be mandatory quotas for politics, Norway has also been the first of several countries in the region to implement gender quotas for private sector leadership; since 2008, publicly listed companies have been required to have 40% of each sex on their boards.

(Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union)

A look to the future

While this data shows that the world is making progress on women's representation, much remains to be done. Quotas, as in South America, are a controversial but often successful short-term mechanism to involve more women in the political sphere. But there are many other routes to improve political inclusiveness, as Scandinavia shows. Making the political workplace more welcoming, curbing intimidation and violence towards female politicians, and providing more arenas for women to meet and network are just some policies governments could use.

What is clear is that unless politics becomes more attractive to and accepting of women, half the world's population will remain half-represented for years to come.

(Picture Credit: Flickr/The Conference of Speakers of Parliament)

Odette Chalaby
odette.chalaby@apolitical.co