Parliamentary Elections March

By: V-Dem Staff
Mar 10, 2017


The V-Dem Variable Graph Tool allows us to examine the percentage of female legislators in the national legislature’s lower chamber, as illustrated in the graph below. In Netherlands, the number of female legislators was around 10 percent until the end of the 1970s when it took a more prominent increase. The highest level of representation was achieved in 2009, when 42 percent of legislators were women. However the number of female legislators has declined slightly since then.

Similarly, Bulgaria had rather stable and low levels of female representation since the Second World War, just below 20 percent. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, however, female parliamentary representation decreased remarkably. Ten years later, in 2001, women gained a 15 percent increase, reaching a level of 26 percent representation in the lower chamber. Female representation in Ireland has taken a somewhat different development. It has continually increased since the Second World War, however by 2012 it only reached approximately 15 percent. New numbers on female representation will soon be available with the next V-Dem data update.

To learn more about the female representation in parliaments across the globe, use the V-Dem Online Analysis Tool on V-Dem.net.