Women make up more than half the population in most countries, but they tend to be sharply under-represented in most parliaments. According to data compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, just under 19% of the world’s 48,000 or so MPs are women.Women make up the majority of MPs in only one country – Rwanda. That’s due in part to the post-genocide constitution, which mandates a minimum 30% quota for female representatives. Among OECD countries, Sweden has the highest proportion of women MPs – just over 46%, making it second in the world. Indeed, women generally are strongly represented in many northern European countries, including the Netherlands and the Nordics. At the other end of the scale, women account for fewer than 15% of MPs in the lower houses of several OECD parliaments, including Korea, Ireland, Japan, Hungary and Turkey.
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