Women in Parliament

The IPU has just released the latest statistics on what proportion of legislators are women, in each country.

The “top” country is surprisingly Rwanda with 39/80 MPs being women, or 49%

NZ is in 14th= place (out of 189 countries) at 32%.

Australia is 33rd with 25%.

Nine countries have no women as legislators. The bottom ranked European country is Ukraine at 9%, then Russia 10%, Romania 11%, and France 12%.

It’s good to see NZ doing so well, and there is no doubt MMP has helped with this.

The stats per region are also interesting:

World 17%
Pacific (excluding Australia and New Zealand) 3%
Arab States 9%
Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand) 15%
Asia 16%
Sub-Saharan Africa 17%
Europe (excluding Nordic countries) 17%
Europe (including Nordic countries) 19%
Americas 20%
Nordic countries 41%

So the worse areas are the Pacific Islands, followed by Arab states, and then Asia and Africa.