The map of women’s political power in the world

On March 8 of each year, the International Women’s Day, it’s a day to claim our rights but also to celebrate, looking back, all the achievements achieved. Which are not few, but still not enough. If last year we published the map of the year women gained the right to vote in each country, this year we delve into the map of women’s political power in the world.

And we can already say that the political power of women on the planet has not been distributed as it should. “In this map, we go into more detail to find out how much political power women hold around the world. The Council on Foreign Relations draws the most recent data from UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to look at the percentage of women holding ministerial positions in 195 national governments,” Visual Capitalist points out. The map then sourced 2022 data from these three international organizations.

In this sense, according to the latest report Women in Parliament in 2021 by the IPUin 2022 the global proportion of female parliamentarians increased by 0.6 percentage points, reaching 26.1%. As the report explains, growth has been intermittent since 2021. The highest female representation was recorded in the Americas, with 39.1% of elected MPs, while in Europe the percentage increased by 4.2 points in most countries, making it the continent with the highest female representation in the world. In particular, women like Angela Merkel stand out in Europe, who despite having resigned in 2021, is the woman who has remained in power the longest: 15 years.

Asia hasn’t improved much since 2021, posting just a 0.3% increase to 20.7% of total MPs. In Africa, 29.2% of elected MPs are women, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to the previous elections.

Spain leads the world rankings

According to the map, which shows 195 countries, the Spain is the country where women have the greatest weight in political power (66.7%), followed by Finland (61.1%), Nicaragua (58.8%), Colombia (57.9%) and Austria (57 ,1%). In Colombia, for example, you became vice president France Marquezthe first woman in the history of the country to hold this position.

Even though they make up half of the world’s population, women are not always represented at the highest levels of government. Only 14 countries have at least 50% women in ministerial positions in national government, while only 24 countries have a woman as prime minister or head of state.

Then there are countries (such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or Thailand) where the percentage is practically nil. In conclusion, despite making up half of the world’s population, women are not always represented at the highest levels of government. The complete map is available at this link.

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