In this blog Dr Nia Thomas – Research and Campaigns Officer (ERS Cymru) and Thea Ridley-Castle – Research and Policy Officer (ERS) share insights from their research into gender quotas.
In a recent blog for Centenary Action Evelyn James, Diverse5050 Campaign Manager at Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales, called for the introduction of legally binding gender quotas to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) to help improve women’s representation. Since then, the First Minister of Wales announced plans to introduce gender quotas in the Senedd; is now the time for Westminster to follow suit?
In January 2023 the global proportion of women parliamentarians was 26.5%, indicating that there’s a way to go before we reach gender equality. Upcoming research from the Electoral Reform Society will highlight the potential to increase the speed of achieving gender parity by strengthening the effectiveness of gender quotas through coupling gender quotas with a proportional representation voting system.
Gender Quota: A voluntary or legislated gender-based target for candidates at elections.
Proportional representation: A set of voting systems which are designed to have seat share match vote share than majoritarian systems such as First Past the Post (used in Westminster). Some examples of PR systems are Single Transferable Vote, List PR and Additional Member System
In 2022 there were 47 countries which re-elected their governing bodies, to either the upper or lower house. In countries with a gender quota 30.9% of the total number elected were women; in comparison, in countries with no gender quotas, only 21.2% of MPs elected were women. It is evident therefore, that gender quotas make a real difference to women’s representation in parliament.
But, so does the electoral system. In 2022, countries with either proportional representation (PR) or mixed electoral systems collectively elected 29% women to their parliaments, whereas countries with majority or plurality systems (A system where after votes have been cast and totalled, those candidates or parties with the most votes are declared the winners) only elected 22.4% women to their parliaments. The electoral system used also influences the likelihood of applying gender quotas. Of those countries holding elections in 2022, nearly three quarters (73%) of countries with PR or mixed electoral systems had either a voluntary or legislated gender quota in place, whereas in majority or plurality systems nearly three quarters of countries (73%) did not have any type of quota in place.
If implemented, gender quotas would be most effective if Westminster also moved to a PR voting system which would concentrate efforts to achieve gender parity. As the below chart shows, countries which use Proportional Representation consistently elected more women in 2022 in comparison to countries with a plurality/majority system and that positive effect was amplified through the application of gender quotas.
Reasons why proportional representation systems are a more effective mechanism to deliver gender quotas:
- Countries which have a PR system are more likely to use multi-member districts, where multiple representatives are elected per constituency. This provides the opportunity to field greater numbers of diverse candidates and increase women’s representation.
- Due to the design of PR ballot papers it is easier to implement quotas in PR systems. For example, in some systems parties produce a candidate list that alternates between men and women, meaning that 50% of a party’s candidates are men and 50% women.
Voting systems which use PR are more successful in electing women whether they include gender quotas or not. However, PR alone will not sufficiently increase the speed in which we achieve gender parity. It is evident that gender quotas and a PR system working in tandem are the most conducive mechanism to increase gender parity.
Look out for a new report on quotas from the Electoral Reform Society later this year.