The Status of Women in the World’s Parliaments

A global organization based in Geneva, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) works to promote democratic governance around the world. One of its objectives is to advance parity in the world’s parliaments. The IPU maintains a global database on women’s parliamentary representation. In a just published report, IPU warns that women’s gains in parliament have slowed to their lowest rate since 2017. 

What are some outcomes you anticipate coming out of the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69)?  

I hope that we manage to collectively preserve the gender equality narrative and objectives that we have set and to be able to push further for acceleration and more ambitious goals. I would say we are not going back despite the current dangers and anti-rights narratives. This year we're marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. When we marked the 25th anniversary, it was in a context that was extremely difficult, with COVID-19. Collectively we succeeded in showing that even more when there is a crisis, we need gender equality. I really hope that for this celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Platform for action, we can also reinforce this message that whatever the situation is, gender equality is a way to address and redress the challenges that we're facing.

Can you talk a little bit about what work the IPU is doing in conjunction with CSW? 

Every year at CSW we bring together members of parliament with the objective of adding a parliamentary dimension to the sessions.  In terms of legislation, policy making must go through parliament, so the more that parliaments are involved in these processes, the more they understand, and are partners, the more chances we have at the national level to get legislation that empowers and targets improving the rights of women and girls. So, we want parliamentarians to be at the table at CSW because they represent the people and it's really this link that is extremely important to be made. 

The IPU and UN women organize together every year a parliamentary meeting where we discuss the topic of the CSW from a parliamentary perspective This year, the meeting will focus on pushing back against the pushback [against gender equality]. The objective is to take stock of the elections held in 2024, the low level of advancement [of women’s representation], and to show the way towards a paradigm shift in advancing women's political participation towards parity. We will also call attention to and call for action against any setbacks globally, including attempts to push back on measures to address violence against women, sexual reproductive health and rights, and even child marriage and female genital mutilation. These are topics where parliamentarians have a strong stake in, so we want to make sure that this meeting allows Parliaments and parliamentarians to mobilize on this issue. Another event we have is on how best to challenge negative social norms that hinder women's political participation.  

How has the IPU promoted political parity and equal participation? 

At the IPU, we aim to practice what we preach. We managed to create a movement whereby the political will inside the organization is advancing to embody gender equality. This ambition has led us to use the word parity as the ultimate objective for action. And we've been doing that for more than a decade. We have implemented steps within the IPU to enhance gender equality to better advise parliaments. For example, we have internal quotas for women’s representation and women's leadership in different positions. The IPU has a forum of women parliamentarians that is marking this year its 40th anniversary of women's contribution to leadership and leadership with men on gender equality. So, for us this year is very special because it allows us also to look back and see what has worked. 

Another thing that helped us is to have a comprehensive and multidimensional approach. For example, the fact that parliaments need to be gender sensitive institutions to function and have the capacities to work in a gender sensitive and a gender responsive way to deliver on gender equality. We have always promoted the real objective behind gender equality, which is ultimately to make the lives of women and girl good and free from discrimination and violence. Calling on parliaments to take measures to address violence and discrimination comes from that perspective. 

The IPU has just published its annual report on the status of women in parliament, to coincide with the Commission on the Status of Women, and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform and Call to Action for women’s equality. What are the major findings? 

First of all, it’s clear that the parliamentary gender gap has narrowed over the past thirty years. But what we have seen is that progress has decreased, slowed down. The percentage of seats held by women in parliament was 11.3 percent in 1995 when the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted. In early 2025, it stands at 27.2 percent. From the year 2000 to 2015 the proportion of women rose steadily, at a good pace. But since 2017 the progress has started slowing down. 

Last year in 2024, despite the high number of elections that took place, women's parliamentary representation increased by only 0.3 percentage points—the slowest rate of progress since 2017. We have also seen electoral violence against women increasing in 2024. For example, in Mexico, there were 130 candidates, including thirty women allegedly attacked during the elections. The Republic of Korea saw a woman MP physically attacked physically during the elections and in the UK, the Electoral Commission itself said that there were alarming an alarming rise in candidate abuse. 

On the brighter side, compared to 1995, no parliament had parity or was even imagining that there could be parity. But today there are six parliaments from different regions in the world—Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Andorra and the United Arab Emirates—that have either parity or a majority of women in in one of their houses. Most of the progress over the past thirty years was achieved in the Americas as a region, so North, Central and South America now have the highest average of women in parliament with a proportion of 35.4 percent of the seats held by women, which is well above the 27.2 percent global proportion.  

In terms of lessons learned, two factors have had a significant impact on the share of women elected to parliament. One is if the electoral system uses proportional representation, or mixed electoral systems, and second, is if it has gender quotas in any form. Last year in countries where gender quotas were place, the proportion of women elected or appointed was 31.2 percent compared to 16.8 percent in countries without any quota. 

From this past year, we are also seeing more diversity among women elected to parliament. In the 2024 UK elections, the Parliament is the most diverse ever, showing a trend toward more democracy, more inclusivity, more diversity. We've also seen that gender issues, in particular abortion rights and issues of gender identity were high on the agenda and present in the electoral narrative and in decisions taken by voters.  

 There's hope in a new generation of politicians and voters. We need to invest more in having the new generation on board for democracy, diversity, and inclusivity, including men and allies. This year, the IPU is launching a campaign for gender equality with one key area of action on parity. It is time in 2025 to accelerate progress so we want parliamentarians to take action and know what actions can be taken towards parity. We've committed, talked, and now there's some work to do in terms of concrete changes and measures to put in place.