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   The Chart

Not exactly a lipstick lineup

Women in Parliament

Handbag-wielding members of parliament are a fairly new occurrence. In 1960, as a very interesting DICE interactive chart shows, even the enlightened and ultra-progressive Nordics boasted no more than 15% of women in their parliaments. Switzerland, that go-it-alone place that brings democratic processes closest to the grassroots, had zero female parliamentarians, same as Australia and Luxembourg.  Even Iceland, which soon would become the first country in the world to have a political party formed and led entirely by women (in 1983) and the first to directly elect a female president (1980), had a minuscule proportion of barely above 3% of women in parliament back in 1960.

The US and the UK occupied middling places in the ranking, with just below 4%, trailing even Italy, while Germany had a relatively respectable 9%, trumping Norway.

1968, a year hallmarked by the sex revolution, flower power, student protests and a civil-rights movement raging in the US, saw almost no change in the number of women parliamentarians. The bright spots were Norway, which had moved to its rightful place among the Nordics, who now hogged all the top slots. The notable exception was Iceland, which had slipped down to 1.7%. The US did no better, dropping to 2.5%. Luxembourg had left its laggard spot and swiftly moved to the mid-field, but was still below 4%, while Australia kept in those years trying to reach 1% but never really making it, more often than not falling back to the bottom. Switzerland  was the only country permanently, and stubbornly, stuck at 0%.

The Swiss clung to the bottom rung until 1971, when they suddenly jumped to the upper half of the chart, surpassing even Iceland, which had itself dramatically improved its ranking.

The Swiss continued their rally. At the beginning of the 1980s, they had almost doubled their female proportion of lawmakers, reaching 10.5% and approaching the top-performers, which were still overwhelmingly Nordic (all scoring above 23%) but now included, whoa, Luxembourg, the former laggard. The US and the UK were still fairly misogynous places in terms of electing their legislators, despite Margaret Thatcher dominating the UK political scene during that entire decade.  Japan did even worse, never since the 1960s getting more than 1.8% on average.

Japan still claimed the bottom slot when the decade ended, while almost everywhere the female share of parliamentarians was on the rise. The Nordics were approaching 40%, as always followed hard on the heels by the Netherlands, while Germany cracked the 20% mark for the first time. Iceland had by then surpassed the Germans, as a result of the developments mentioned in the opening paragraph. The US and the UK were still wallowing near the bottom, with a bit more than 6%, while Australia had gotten its act together and surpassed its two Anglo-Saxon cousins. Switzerland by now occupied a decent spot in the midfield.

The end of the millennium saw a lot more countries added to the survey, and a marked improvement for the UK, which had now gained a spot in the upper half. As always, the Nordics and the Netherlands set the example. Sweden topped the chart with 42.7%. Japan, even though it had finally risen above the 5% watermark (with 7.3%), still was the worst performer among the developed nations.

By 2010, Iceland was second only to Sweden. Small wonder, since for some years every major party in Iceland had had a 40% quota for women. The Netherlands, for decades the most exemplary non-Nordic in this league, followed them, finally cracking the top spots and surpassing Finland, Norway and Denmark. Germany, and, somewhat surprisingly, Belgium and Spain, were among the most women-friendly places as well. Germany even had its first-ever woman Chancellor. The US, in contrast, was still rather heavy on men legislators (all those lawyers…), its proportion of women lower than Greece’s and barely above that of Russia. The UK retained its middling status.

Japan, as always, was the über-laggard among the industrialised countries. Still, now there were all those new entrants to the right of it—i.e. countries that were even less women-friendly—such as India, Turkey and Brazil, among others. But Japan reacted swiftly. By 2012 it had corrected the anomaly—and was back at its rightful place, smack at the bottom.



Other DICE interactive charts

This text is the responsibility of the writer and does not necessarily represent the opinion of CESifo or of DICE.