PR for Women

The table below shows the affect of voting rules on several measures of democracy. Column 1, Women, shows the percentage of legislative seats won by women. Column 2 tells the voting Rule. "PR" countries use some form of Proportional Representation. "SWD" countries use winner-take-all, Single-Winner Districts. "Mixed" systems elect a mix of reps by PR and SWD, usually plurality. The Turnout of voters is a measure of their interest in democracy. The percentages shown are from earlier elections. Notes give details on voting rules: Mjr = single-seat districts using runoff or STV to require a majority. Plr = single-seat districts using plurality.

 

Women Win	Voting Rule	Voter Turnout	Country	Election Date	Notes
43% 37% 37% 36% 36% 31% 29% 29% 26% 25% 22% 22% 21% 21% 19% 18% 18% 13% 13% 12% 11% 11%   7%   6%	PR PR PR PR PR Mixed Mixed PR PR PR PR SWD PR SWD PR PR SWD SWD PR PR Mixed SWD PR PR	86% 72% 83% 83% 80% 78%     86% 86% 70%   47%     93% 76% 38% 68% 69% 89% 65%   77%	Sweden Finland Denmark Norway Netherlands Germany New Zealand South Africa Austria Iceland Spain Australia Switzerland Canada Costa Rica Belgium UK USA Portugal Ireland Italy France Japan Greece	09  1998 03  1999 09  1997 03  1998 05  1998 09  1998 04  1994 04  1994 12  1995 04  1995 03  1996 10  1998 10  1995 06  1997 02  1998 05  1995 05  1997 11  1998 10  1995 06  1997 04  1996 05  1997 05  1996 09  1996	50% SWD, Plr 50% SWD, Plr         Mjr, AV (IRV)         Plr Plr STV 75% SWD, Plr Mjr, Runoff

Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The most unusual case is Australia. Its lower house has the highest percentage of women for any legislature elected from single-winner districts, 22%. They are elected by STV in single winner districts -- a voting rule which Australians call "Alternative Vote" and Americans call "Instant Runoff". As those names imply it 1) lets a voter rank many candidates and 2) combines the primary and general elections so there are often more than 2 important candidates; this encourages voter participation; turnout in Australia is about 90%. (Voting, like taxes and jury duty, is mandatory.)

Australia's upper chamber is elected by multi-winner STV. Each province returns 5 senators. This filled 33% of the seats with women after the October 1998 election. The women's share of seats might be even higher if there were more than 5 seats in each district, but 33% compares well with elections in other countries -- and more seats in each district could attract more candidates making the preference ballots longer, more difficult for voters.

Ireland also uses multi-winner STV but most districts return only 3 or 4 reps. Therefore each party offers only a short slate of candidates -- and some slates are all male.

Chile is even worse: Dictator Pinochet imposed a system like PR but with only 2 reps from each district. The result is a political system organized around 2 coalitions offering voters only 2 real options. The legislature is 11% women while Chile's neighbor Argentina elects 28% women via PR with larger districts.

Of course voter turnout and representation by women are influenced by variables other than voting rules: Culture: The electoral success of women is influenced by the quality of education for women and by gender prejudices, often based in religion. Latitude: The accuracy of democracy seems to correlate with distance from the Equator -- even within a cultural region such as Europe or within a large country such as the USA. As with any statistical tendency there are exceptions, for example Costa Rica is notably more democratic than its neighbors.

Much of this may be due to the temperate zone's higher agricultural productivity and lower incidences of major diseases combining to give greater wealth and education. (What does global warming forecast for democracy in the 21st Century?) But cultures and latitudes cannot explain why PR elects more women than plurality rule does in the same country. Germans elect half of their reps from single-winner districts and the other half from party-list PR. Women win only a tenth of the single-winner seats but they win one-third of the list-PR seats. The same pattern is seen in New Zealand.

Are women important? Legislatures with more women give more attention and funding to child care, education, health care, and other social issues according to research by the National Organization for Women.

Older data: Voter turnout and seats for woman vary from year to year in each country. But PR countries always hold the top spots and winner-take-all countries do poorly. Another page has older data on voter turnout and electing women.

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