More than a quarter of lawmakers worldwide are women, but parity 50 years away

More than a quarter of lawmakers worldwide are women after the proportion inched higher in 2020, but progress is so slow that it will take 50 years at the present rate before they achieve parity with men, a global body of legislatures said on Friday.

“Although progress has been steady over the past few years, it is still excruciatingly slow,” the Inter-Parliamentary Union, made up of 179 national member parliaments and 13 regional parliaments, said in an annual ‘Women in Parliament’ report.

“At the current rate, it will take another 50 years before gender parity is achieved in parliaments worldwide,” the Geneva-based IPU said.

Women made up 25.5 percent of parliamentarians in 2020, up 0.6 percentage points from 2019. In 1995 the portion of women was just 11.3 percent.

Only three countries have as many women in their legislatures as men: Cuba, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates. Some countries including, Papau New Guinea, Micronesia and Vanuatu, have no women in parliament at all.