Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 33:263–279, 2012

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1554-477X print/1554-4788 online
DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2012.694779

Women’s Representation in National Politics

in the World’s Democratic Countries:
A Research Note

JOHN HÖGSTRÖM
Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

In this research note, I introduce a new concept for examining

women’s political representation. This concept deals with women’s
representation both in parliaments and governments. I name the
new concept “women’s representation in national politics.” The
empirical results of this study demonstrate that the independent
variable region is the variable with the greatest explanatory power
of the independent variables used in this study. The results show
that Scandinavia has extraordinarily high levels of female rep-
resentation in national politics. The results also show that three
countries in Oceania—Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu—do not have
any female representation in national politics.
KEYWORDS women’s representation, women in politics, polit-
ical representation, national politics, democratic countries,
parliaments, governments

Without the active participation of women and the incorporation of

women’s perspective at all levels of decision-making, the goals of
equality, development and peace cannot be achieved.
—Beijing Platform for Action, Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995

The author thanks the four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a
previous draft of this article.
Address correspondence to John Högström, Department of Social Sciences, Mid Sweden
University, Kunskapensväg 1, Building P, 83125 Östersund, Sweden. E-mail: john.hogstrom@
miun.se

263
264 J. Högström

INTRODUCTION

A parliamentary post and a government post can be viewed as two of

the most powerful political positions of decision making. Of course it is
important that countries have high levels of female representation in both
parliaments and governments. It seems that many previous studies in this
field have ignored this point. A majority of previous studies concerning
women’s representation in politics deals only with women’s representa-
tion in parliaments and not with women’s representation in governments.1
Since a government post can be viewed as one of the most powerful
political positions in the world that a woman can hold, it seems strange
that the literature does not address this issue to a much higher extent.
Therefore, I intend to fill this gap. I introduce a new and different concept
for examining and measuring women’s political representation. The new
concept deals with women’s representation in both parliaments and gov-
ernments. I name the concept women’s representation in national politics.
The aim of this research is threefold: (1) to introduce a new and differ-
ent concept to examine women’s political representation, which addresses
women’s representation in both parliaments and governments; (2) to clar-
ify women’s political representation in the world’s democratic countries at
the beginning of 2008; and (3) to test hypotheses in order to determine
which factors affect women’s representation in national politics in democratic
countries.

EARLIER RESEARCH

There is considerable variation among the world’s countries in terms of

women’s representation in parliaments and governments. Previous research
addressing this phenomenon has identified different variables that explain
the variation. The variables have been further divided into four different
types: political institutional variables, political culture variables, economic
development variables, and historical variables. However, in this research
note, I will not review previous findings concerning women’s representation
in parliaments and women’s representation in governments. (For findings
of previous research concerning women’s representation in parliaments,
see, e.g., Caul 1999; 2001; Dahlerup 2006; Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005;
2008; Hughes and Paxton 2008; Kenworthy and Malami 1999; Matland
1993; 1998; Matland and Studlar 1996; McAllister and Studlar 2002; Paxton
1997; Paxton and Hughes 2007; Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Reynolds 1999;
Rosenbluth, Salmond, and Thies 2006; Rule 1981; 1987; Siaroff 2000; Studlar
and McAllister 2002; and Tripp and Kang 2008. For findings of previous
research concerning women’s representation in governments, see Davis
1997; Reynolds 1999; and Siaroff 2000).
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 265

THEORETICAL POINTS OF DEPARTURE

In terms of both representative democracy and gender equality, it is

important that countries have high levels of female representation in both
parliaments and governments. Therefore, in this study, I examine the deter-
minants of women’s representation in parliaments and governments in the
democratic countries in the world with a new measurement: women’s rep-
resentation in national politics. However, some question the need for a new
measurement concerning female representation. From my point of view, it
seems clear that a new measure is needed. Of course, I need to expand
on this short answer. If a country has a relatively high female representa-
tion in the national parliament, the country gets applauded for its gender
equality. But what if this country has a low female representation in gov-
ernment? Or if the situation is the reverse—a country has a low gender
disparity in the national government but a high gender disparity in the
national parliament—shouldn’t that matter when addressing gender equal-
ity? These examples reveal a gap in the research that needs attention, as it
appears the earlier literature in this area has not addressed this problem.
The majority of the literature concerning women’s representation in politics
deals only with women’s representation in parliaments. Two studies deal
with both women’s representation in parliaments and women’s representa-
tion in governments (Reynolds 1999; Siaroff 2000), and these studies discuss
the two factors separately and do not perform any combined analysis of the
two factors. Therefore, to highlight that problem and to fill the literature gap,
I use a new measurement tool to assess the level of women’s representation
in national politics.
Why should the new measurement include women’s representation
in parliaments and women’s representation in governments? Of course it’s
true that political positions such as president, prime minister, and parlia-
mentary posts in the upper house in bicameral systems are powerful and
important political positions of decision making. For representative democ-
racy and gender equality, it is important to have a high level of female
representation in these political positions. However, in countries with differ-
ent political systems, such political positions are not available and cannot
be held. Thus, I suggest including two factors, women’s representation in
parliaments and women’s representation in governments, which are included
in all the world’s democratic political systems, when comparing women’s
representation in national politics. These two indicators include one elected
body (parliaments) and one unelected body (governments). It is positive
and interesting that the measurement consists of one elected body and one
unelected body, because the assessment will indicate whether the people,
the political parties, and political leaders (which elect the governments’ mem-
bers) in the countries in question give priority to gender equality in national
politics.
266 J. Högström

Of course, determining how to calculate the new concept is an impor-

tant methodological issue. The measurement of the new concept must meet
two necessary demands: (1) the new concept should not be complex to cal-
culate and (2) the results from the calculation should be easy to interpret.
There are several methods for calculating the new concept; for example, it
is possible to multiply the two terms, multiply the terms and then divide
them, add the terms, add and then divide the terms, add the standardized
scores, or average the standardized scores. Since both terms are measured in
percentages and I want to keep the measurement easy to calculate and the
results easy to interpret, I have decided to keep these terms in percentage
form so as to interpret the results in percentages (0 to 100). Accordingly, the
new concept will be calculated by adding the percentage of female represen-
tation in national parliaments and the percentage of female representation
in national governments and dividing by two. For example, South Korea
had a female representation of 14.4% in parliament and 5.0% in government
in 2008. This gives a final value of 9.70% female representation in national
politics for South Korea ((14.4 + 5.0) ÷ 2 = 9.70).

RESEARCH DESIGN

In this study, I test eight different hypotheses to determine which fac-

tors affect women’s political representation. Earlier research concerning
women’s representation in parliaments and women’s representation in
governments provides the theoretical justification for these hypotheses.
However, I also examine some variables that are relatively untested in
this research area, with the hope of increasing the knowledge about
which factors affect women’s political representation. The hypotheses are as
follows:

H1: The geographic region to which a country belongs affects the level of
women’s representation in national politics. It is expected that Scandinavia
will show a greater female representation in national politics than other
regions.
H2: The dominant religion of a country affects women’s representation in
national politics. It is expected that countries with Protestantism as a
dominating religion will have higher female representation in national
politics.
H3: Level of economic development (gross domestic product [GDP] per
capita) affects women’s representation in national politics. It is expected
that countries with higher levels of economic development will show
greater female representation in national politics.
H4: The length of democracy experience affects women’s representation
in national politics. It is expected that “old” democracies will have a
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 267

greater degree of women’s representation in national politics than do

“new” democracies.
H5: The time period of women’s suffrage affects women’s representation
in national politics. It is expected that countries where women have had
voting rights for a longer time period will have higher female representa-
tion in national politics than in those countries where women’s suffrage is
more recent.
H6: Quotas for increasing women’s representation in parliaments affect
women’s representation in national politics. It is expected that countries
that use quotas will have a greater degree of female representation in
national politics than countries that do not use quotas.
H7: The type of electoral system has an effect on women’s representation in
national politics. It is expected that countries using proportional electoral
systems will show greater female representation in national politics than
countries using majority or mixed electoral systems.
H8: Female representation in parliaments and female representation in
governments will be strongly correlated.

There are no strong theoretical arguments for including quotas (H6) and elec-
toral systems (H7) as independent variables when the dependent variable
is women’s representation in national politics. However, previous research
has found that electoral systems and quotas affect women’s representa-
tion in parliaments. As a result, I theorize that a proportional system will
also have a positive contagion effect on women’s representation in gov-
ernments. Similarly, I also theorize that the use of quotas for increasing
women’s representation in parliaments will also have a contagion positive
effect on women’s representation in governments. According to these the-
oretical assumptions, electoral systems and quotas should affect women’s
representation in national politics. I use quantitative empirical analyses to
test these hypotheses. I test H1 through H7 using a number of indepen-
dent variables, and I test H8 with a bivariate correlation analysis. I consider
the explanatory power and the level of statistical significance when the
hypotheses are confirmed or rejected.

Selection of Cases
Many earlier studies examining women’s representation in politics either
have included Western industrial democracies or have featured large num-
bers of democratic countries and nondemocratic countries. This research
studies the democratic countries of the world, and its purpose is to include
as many democracies as possible, not only industrialized democracies. I use
the Freedom House definition for free country, which follows, as a defini-
tion for democracy: “A free country is one where there is broad scope for
open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant
268 J. Högström

independent civic life, and independent media.” Accordingly, the Freedom

House definition for free countries is used for rating the world’s countries as
democracies or nondemocracies. Thus, countries are classified as democra-
cies if they are rated as free by Freedom House; countries are categorized as
nondemocratic if they are rated as partly free or not free by Freedom House.
Nondemocracies are not included in this study. In the Freedom House sur-
vey, from 2007, 90 countries are rated as free. Accordingly, all 90 of these
countries could be included in this study; however, I limited my case selec-
tion to those nations that could be considered reasonably stable democracies.
A reasonably stable democracy is a country that was democratic for the
cohesive five-year period between 2003 and 2007.
I use the Freedom House annual surveys of countries’ democratic status
to control for countries’ democratic status over the past five years. Using the
stable democracy criterion, five democratic countries are excluded from the
study. In addition, Taiwan, which also is a democratic country, is excluded
from the study since it is excluded from certain databases that are used
in the research. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) also lacks available
information on female representation in the governments of two democratic
countries: (1) Saint Kitts and Nevis and (2) Saint Lucia. Therefore, the survey
consists of a total of 82 democratic countries. This article reports women’s
representation from the beginning of 2008. Data concerning women’s repre-
sentation in parliaments and women’s representation in governments were
collected from the IPU.

Method/Statistical Analyses
The empirical section starts by analyzing the new combined measure,
women’s representation in national politics, using a correlation analysis
between women’s representation in parliaments and women’s represen-
tation in governments. The empirical section then continues with simple
regressions and controls for whether there are some statistically significant
relationships between the dependent variable and the independent variables.
A p value less than 0.10 is accepted as statistically significant evidence in
the simple regressions. The independent variables that achieve a statisti-
cally significant relationship to the dependent variable are then used in the
multivariate analyses. The multivariate regressions will depart from the inde-
pendent variable that achieved the highest statistical significance and highest
explanatory power in simple regressions. I use the ordinary least squares
(OLS) method when I run the regression models.

Dependent Variable
In this study, the dependent variable consists of the percentage of
women’s representation in democratic countries’ national politics in 2008.
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 269

For countries with a bicameral parliament, women’s representation in the

lower house is included in the analyses.

Independent Variables
Seven independent variables are included in this study. The independent
variables consist of two political culture variables (region and dominating
religion), two political institutional variables (electoral system and quotas),
one economic development variable (GDP per capita) and two historical vari-
ables (women’s suffrage and old/new democracies). In terms of the region
variable, I follow some previous research (Kenworthy and Malami 1999;
Paxton 1997; Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Tripp and Kang 2008) and sep-
arate Scandinavia from the rest of Western Europe because of its specific
political culture (Paxton and Hughes 2007, 222–23). Due to their particu-
lar political culture, Scandinavian countries traditionally display high gender
equality when compared with other countries.2 The variable region is divided
into eight different categories: Scandinavia, Western Europe, Eastern Europe,
Africa, Asia, South America, North and Central America, and Oceania. In the
analyses, the regions are measured through eight dummy variables. The
Scandinavian region is used as the baseline variable.
The independent variable dominating religion is divided into four dif-
ferent categories: (1) countries that do not have any dominating religion;
(2) countries with Protestantism as the dominating religion; (3) countries with
Catholicism as the dominating religion; and (4) countries with a dominating
religion other than Protestantism or Catholicism. These categories are then
applied in regression models in four different dummies, where the dummy
for Protestantism is used as the baseline variable. Dominating religion is the
religion that 50% or more of a country’s population worships. Other dominat-
ing religions, such as Islam, Judaism, Shintoism/Buddhism, and Hinduism,
dominate in only a few democratic countries. To avoid making the regression
too complex, I combine these countries into one category.
Previous research (Caul 1999; McAllister and Studlar 2002; Paxton 1997;
Tripp and Kang 2008) coded the electoral system as a dummy variable. In the
recent time period, there are 12 democratic countries that use a mixed elec-
toral system. As a result, the independent variable electoral system is divided
into three categories: proportional systems, mixed systems, and majority
systems (first-past-the-post, alternative vote, two-round systems). In the anal-
yses, electoral system is measured through three dummies, and proportional
systems are used as a baseline variable.
The independent variable quota has been divided into three different
categories:3 (1) countries that do not use legislative quotas or voluntary party
quotas for women; (2) countries where one or several parties that are rep-
resented in the parliament use voluntary party quotas; and (3) countries that
use legislative quotas. Denmark and Ghana are not coded as having quotas
270 J. Högström

because they abolished their previously used quotas. These categories are
applied in the regression models using three different dummies, where the
dummy for no use of quotas is used as the baseline variable. To measure
economic development, I use GDP per capita for each of the countries. GDP
per capita is in thousands of US dollars.
Earlier research has shown that historical variables can explain some
of the variation of women’s representation in parliaments and governments.
For example, the length of time that women have had political rights has
a certain explanatory power for the proportion of women’s representation;
one indicator which has been used is the period of time that women have
had the right to vote, and another indicator which had been used is the
number of years women have had the right to run for office. In this research
I include women’s suffrage as an independent variable, and the variable
consists of the number of years prior to 2007 that women had voting rights
in national elections. However, I suggest it is not the period of time women
have had the right to vote or the number of years women have had the
right to run for office that has the main explanatory power for the historical
variables; rather, how long these various countries have been democratic is
of more importance to the degree of women’s representation. This suggests
countries which have been democratic for a longer period of time would
have a higher percentage of women in parliaments and governments than
would countries which have been democratic for a shorter period of time.
For certain countries, the advent of democracy concurs with the introduction
of women’s right to vote.
I adopt a wide classification of old and new democracies from Samuel
P. Huntington’s (1991) concepts of waves of democratization described in
his book The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century.
I classify countries that are included in the two first democratization waves
(1828–1974), which democratized before 1974, as old democracies. Countries
democratized during the third democratization wave and later (1974 and on)
are classified as new democracies. This independent variable is applied in
the regression analyses as a dummy variable where new democracies are
given the value zero and old democracies are given the value one. In the
appendix, databases from which materials were acquired are named.

RESULTS

The first part of this empirical section examines the correlation between
women’s representation in parliaments and women’s representation in gov-
ernments. As Figure 1 shows, there is a relatively strong, positive correlation
between women’s representation in parliaments and women’s representa-
tion in governments (r = 0.665, p = 0.000). This correlation is in accordance
with the correlation (r = 0.693) found in Siaroff’s (2000) study. This scenario
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 271

FIGURE 1 Correlation Between Women’s Representation in Parliaments and Government,

2008 (color figure available online).

confirms that a number of countries, including Finland, Sweden, Norway,

and Spain, have a high percentage of women both in parliament and in gov-
ernment. There are also countries that have little representation of women
both in parliament and in government; and three countries have a female
representation of 0.00% both in terms of parliament and government: Nauru,
Palau, and Tuvalu. Despite the relatively strong correlation between female
representation in parliaments and female representation in governments, a
high level of female representation in national parliaments does not nec-
essarily correspond with a high level of female representation in national
governments.4 This scenario is presented inter alia in Argentina, Portugal,
and Monaco. In Argentina, for example, the female percentage in parlia-
ment is 40.0%, while the female percentage in government is 23.1%. There
are examples of the reverse phenomenon, where the proportion of female
members of government is appreciably higher than the proportion of female
members of parliament. One example of such a scenario is Sao Tome and
Principe, in which 25.0% women compose the government, but only 1.8%
women compose the parliament. Similar scenarios occur in countries such as
Chile, France, Grenada, and Micronesia. Table 1 presents the ten democratic
272 J. Högström

TABLE 1 Women’s Representation in National Politics, 2008

Countries with Highest Countries with Lowest

Female Representation % Female Representation %

Finland 49.70 Nauru 0.00

Sweden 47.30 Palau 0.00
Norway 45.85 Tuvalu 0.00
Spain 40.20 Romania 4.70
South Africa 38.90 Vanuatu 5.75
Grenada 38.35 Kiribati 6.00
Denmark 37.40 Marshall Islands 6.50
Netherlands 36.30 Micronesia 7.15
Switzerland 35.70 India 9.70
Austria 35.65 South Korea 9.70

countries with the highest and the lowest female representation in national
politics in 2008.
The results displayed in Table 1 show that Finland, with a value of
49.70%, is the country with the highest proportion of women in national
politics among the democratic countries of the world. There are three addi-
tional countries with a female representation in national politics of more than
40%: Sweden (47.30%), Norway (45.85%), and Spain (40.20%). Accordingly,
three of the Nordic countries have the highest level of female representation
in national politics. The countries with the lowest levels of female represen-
tation in national politics, as mentioned, are Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu, with
0.00% female representation. It is of note that the three countries with the
lowest levels of female representation among democratic states in the world
belong to the same region, Oceania.
This empirical section concerning women’s representation in national
politics continues with simple regressions. Table 2 presents the results of
regression analyses where each of the seven independent variables is related
to the dependent variable, women’s representation in national politics.
As the results in Table 2 show, all seven independent variables achieve
a statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable. The
political culture variable for region is the independent variable that achieves

TABLE 2 Regressions of Women’s Representation in National Politics

Independent Variables Adjusted R2 Sig

Region 0.422 0.000

GDP/capita 0.168 0.000
Electoral system 0.156 0.000
Women’s suffrage 0.119 0.001
Old/new democracies 0.115 0.001
Dominating religion 0.074 0.029
Quotas 0.047 0.055
Note: N = 82.
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 273

the highest level of statistical significance and the highest explanatory power
in simple regressions, followed by GDP per capita and electoral system. The
next step is to test the independent variables’ statistical relationship with
the dependent variable in multivariate analyses, holding the other variables
constant.
The multivariate models depart from the independent variable region,
which was the variable that achieved the highest explanatory power in sim-
ple regressions. The first model consists of the region dummies and the other
culture variable, dominating religion. The second model adds the politi-
cal institutional variables for electoral system and quotas with the region
dummies. The third model consists of the Region dummies and the two his-
torical variables, women’s suffrage and old/new democracies. In the fourth
model, the socioeconomic variable for GDP per capita is added together
with the region dummies. In the fifth, and last, model, the region dummies
are dropped, and the model consists of the other independent variables
(dominating religion, electoral system, quotas, women’s suffrage, old/new
democracies, and GDP per capita). VIF statistics indicated that the models
do not have any problems with multicollinearity. (The highest VIF value for
a dummy variable was 6.80 and for a quantitative variable 2.52). Table 3
shows the results of the five models examining women’s representation in
national politics.
As Table 3 shows, models 1 through 5 explain between 31.5% and 44.9%
of the variation in the dependent variable. In models 1 through 4, all the
region dummies are statistically significant and negative, which indicates that
Scandinavia has a higher female representation in national politics compared
with other regions when controlling for other variables. The results from
models 1 through 4 show that dominating religion, electoral system, quotas,
women’s suffrage, old/new democracies, and GDP per capita do not have a
statistically significant relationship with women’s representation in national
politics when controlling for geographic region.
In the fifth and final model, where the region dummies are dropped, the
dummy variable for another dominating religion other than Protestantism or
Catholicism achieves statistically significant relationship with women’s rep-
resentation in national politics. The coefficient is negative (−11.248), which
indicates that countries with a dominating religion other than Protestantism
or Catholicism have 11.25% less female representation in national politics
than countries with Protestantism as dominating religion, when controlling
for the other variables in model 5. The dummies for countries without
dominating religion and countries with Catholicism as dominating religion
achieve no statistical significant relationship with the dependent variable.
The coefficient for majority system is negative (−9.513), as expected, and the
coefficient achieves statistical significance. The findings indicate that majority
system affects women’s representation in national politics negatively when
compared with proportional system even when controlling for dominating
 TABLE 3 Multivariate Regressions, Women’s Representation in National Politics

Independent Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Constant 43.020∗∗∗ (3.673) 41.653∗∗∗ (3.868) 33.086∗∗∗ (5.917) 36.993∗∗∗ (5.156) 23.207∗∗∗ (4.696)
Western Europe −21.801∗∗∗ (5.604) −18.923∗∗∗ (4.190) −15.164∗∗∗ (4.303) −17.865∗∗∗ (4.117)
Eastern Europe −27.208∗∗∗ (5.798) −25.429∗∗∗ (4.376) −20.746∗∗∗ (4.862) −21.329∗∗∗ (4.812)
Africa −24.306∗∗∗ (5.604) −20.197∗∗∗ (4.591) −15.359∗∗∗ (5.155) −16.659∗∗∗ (5.422)
Asia −31.346∗∗∗ (6.850) −30.580∗∗∗ (5.545) −27.811∗∗∗ (5.347) −28.444∗∗∗ (5.521)
South America −23.305∗∗∗ (6.235) −20.470∗∗∗ (5.092) −14.652∗∗∗ (5.388) −15.135∗∗∗ (5.625)
North and Central America −25.419∗∗∗ (5.196) −19.668∗∗∗ (4.859) −18.598∗∗∗ (4.504) −18.594∗∗∗ (4.862)
Oceania −36.029∗∗∗ (5.408) −28.153∗∗∗ (5.294) −27.802∗∗∗ (4.962) −28.416∗∗∗ (5.290)
No dominant religion 3.611 (3.866) −4.930 (3.391)
Catholicism 3.734 (3.939) −5.127 (3.633)
Another dominant religion −1.395 (4.853) −11.248∗∗ (4.227)
Majority systems −4.375 (2.979) −9.513∗∗∗ (2.767)

274
Mixed systems 1.148 (2.890) −1.847 (2.996)
Voluntary quota 2.279 (2.222) 1.482 (2.589)
Legislative quota 2.933 (2.946) 2.027 (3.317)
Women’s suffrage 0.073 (.055) 0.049 (.054)
Old/new democracies 2.972 (2.557) 5.707∗ (3.222)
GDP/capita 0.147 (.089) 0.006 (.101)

Multiple R 0.704 0.717 0.714 0.700 0.632

R2 0.495 0.514 0.510 0.491 0.400
Adjusted R 2 0.424 0.437 0.449 0.435 0.315
Sig 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
N 82 82 82 82 82
Note: In each row, the unstandardized regression coefficients are listed first, followed by standard errors in parentheses.
∗∗∗
p < 0.01; ∗∗ p < 0.05; ∗ p < 0.10.
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 275

religion, quotas, old/new democracies, women’s suffrage, and GDP per

capita. The coefficient for the other electoral system dummy, mixed system,
is statistically insignificant. The coefficients for voluntary party quota and
legislative quota are also statistically insignificant. These results indicate that
there is no statistically significant evidence that quotas affect women’s repre-
sentation in national politics when controlling for other variables included in
model 5. The coefficient for old/new democracies is statistically significant,
and the coefficient is positive (5.707), as expected. These results indicate that
old democracies have 5.71% more female representation in national politics
compared with new democracies when controlling for the other variables in
model 5. The coefficient for the other historical variable, women’s suffrage,
is insignificant, and the coefficient for the socioeconomic variable GDP per
capita is also insignificant.

CONCLUSIONS

This study introduced a new concept to examine women’s political repre-

sentation. The concept, named women’s representation in national politics,
deals with women’s representation both in parliaments and in governments.
Using this new concept I have highlighted the importance of gender equal-
ity both in parliaments (elected body) and governments (unelected body).
The results confirmed and rejected some of the hypotheses I suggested.
In regressions where the independent variables were separated from one
another and the associations between the dependent variable and the differ-
ent independent variables were tested, all independent variables achieved
a statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable. But in
the multivariate analyses, many of the independent variables failed to be
statistically significant.
Multivariate regressions demonstrated that the political culture variable
for geographic region has the greatest explanatory power for variation in
women’s representation in national politics of the independent variables that
were tested in this study. As a result, it has been established that Scandinavia
has greater female political representation than all other regions, and in
Nordic countries, including Finland, Sweden, and Norway, gender inequality
in national politics is small. However, in some countries gender inequality
is high, and three countries in Oceania—Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu—do not
have any female political representation.
None of the other independent variables achieved a statistically sig-
nificant relationship with women’s representation in national politics when
controlling for geographic region. However, when geographic region was
not controlled for, the results from the multivariate model indicated that
majority electoral system was negatively related with women’s represen-
tation in national politics compared with proportional electoral system.
A dominating religion other than Protestantism or Catholicism is negatively
276 J. Högström

related with women’s representation in national politics compared with

Protestantism as dominating religion. And old democracies are associated
with higher levels of women’s representation in national politics compared
with new democracies.
The results in this study indicate a surprisingly weak relationship
between quotas and women’s representation in national politics in the demo-
cratic countries in the world. The findings indicate that to have a high level
of women’s representation in national politics, it is more important to avoid
using a majority electoral system than it is to use quotas. When controlling
for other variables it seems that high economic development is not important
for a high female representation in national politics.
Finally, regarding the relationship between women’s representation
in parliaments and women’s representation in governments, the bivariate
correlation analysis presents a relatively strong positive correlation. The
result shows that some countries have high female representation both in
governments and in parliaments, and some countries have low female repre-
sentation both in governments and in parliaments. However, the results also
show that some countries have high female representation in parliaments
but low female representation in governments, or vice versa.
According to the results, I find my new concept to measure women’s
representation in national politics is useful for highlighting the problem with
gender inequality in national politics. This was the first study with the new
concept of women’s representation in national politics and the study only
included data and explained the variation for women’s representation in
national politics for one year, 2008. For future studies in the field, I suggest
using longitudinal studies to better understand trends in women’s represen-
tation in national politics. Of course, it would also be interesting to see if
the variables that explain the variation in women’s representation in national
politics have changed over time.

NOTES

1. Andrew Reynolds (1999) and Alan Siaroff (2000) produced two studies that deal with women’s
representation in parliaments and in governments. Rebecca Howard Davis (1997) produced a study that
deals with women’s representation in governments.
2. In this study, Scandinavia refers to the Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark,
and Iceland.
3. None of the countries included in this research uses quotas as reserved seats.
4. The mean for women’s representation in governments is 22.73%, and the mean for women’s
representation in parliaments is 18.79%.

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278 J. Högström

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APPENDIX: SOURCES USED TO CALCULATE THE DEPENDENT AND

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
Degree of Democracy
Freedom House. 2009. “Freedom House: Freedom in the World.” http://
www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world (January 29, 2009).

Dominating Religion
Central Intelligence Agency. 2009. “Central Intelligence Agency: The
World Factbook 2008.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook (January 29, 2009). CIA World Factbook available to down-
load from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/download/download-
2008/index.html

Electoral Systems
Lundell, Krister, and Lauri Karvonen. 2005. A Comparative Data Set on
Political Institutions—An Update. Department of Political Science, Åbo
Akademi University, Occasional Papers Series. Nr 28/2008.
Reynolds, Andrew, Ben Reilly, and Andrew Ellis, eds. 2005. Electoral
System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook. Stockholm, Sweden:
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

GDP per Capita

Central Intelligence Agency. 2009. “Central Intelligence Agency: The
World Factbook 2008.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook (January 29, 2009). CIA World Factbook available to down-
load from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/download/download-
2008/index.html
 Women’s Representation in National Politics 279

Old/New Democracies
Freedom House. 2009. “Freedom House: Freedom in the World.” http://
www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world (January 29, 2009).

Quotas
Quota Project. 2009. “Global Database of Quotas for Women.” http://www.
quotaproject.org (January 23, 2009).

Region
Central Intelligence Agency. 2009. “Central Intelligence Agency: The
World Factbook 2008.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook (January 29, 2009). CIA World Factbook is available to down-
load from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/download/download-
2008/index.html

Women in Parliaments and Women in Ministerial Positions, 2008

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 2009. “Women in Politics: 2008.” http://
www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmnmap08_en.pdf (January 23, 2009).

Women’s Suffrage
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 2009. “Women’s Suffrage.” http://www.ipu.
org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm (January 23, 2009).
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