3.3. Gender equality in politics
Cabinets and legislatures are key decision-making bodies of government and play the most important roles in society by creating laws and policies. As a result, their membership should reflect the composition of the population so each group is properly represented. Women represent somewhat more than half of the population, so it is crucial that over time their representation and effective participation in political decision-making increase, with the ultimate goal of achieving gender equality. Countries can use a broad range of compulsory and voluntary measures to speed up this process and correct for longstanding imbalances. For example, voluntary or compulsory gender quotas could be established. Legislative quotas are enshrined in election law, political party law, or any other comparable law of a country. Measures should be established to mainstream work-life balance practices at the top level of public institutions, promote gender-sensitive working conditions, and facilitate capacity and leadership development opportunities.
In 2020, 31.6% of the members of parliament (lower/single house of parliament) in the Western Balkan region were women, which is close to the OECD (31.1%) and OECD-EU (32%) averages. Higher representation of women can be found in North Macedonia (40%), Serbia (37.7%) and Kosovo (32.5%). Montenegro and Albania are close to 30%, while Bosnia and Herzegovina stands at 21.4%. All Western Balkans have introduced gender quotas that might have contributed to the large increase of the women’s share in parliaments in the region from 23% in 2012 to 31.6% in 2020. Montenegro experienced the largest increase with 14.8 p.p. reaching a share of 29.6% in 2020. The second largest increase happened in Albania where the share moved from 15.7% to 29.5% (13.8 p.p.). Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country without any change in women’s representation in parliaments from 2012-2020.
Regarding ministerial positions women held 27.7% of these positions on average in the Western Balkan region in 2020, compared to the OECD average of 32.2% and the OECD-EU average of 33.2%. In the region this marks an increase of 18.2 p.p. from 9.5% in 2012. The largest increase in women ministers occurred in Albania, where this share went from 6.7% of all ministers in 2012 to 53.3% in 2020. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the increase was almost 16 p.p. from 6.3% to 22.2%, while in Montenegro the increase was from 5.9% to 22.2%. Conversely, Serbia recorded a slight increase, from 15% to 19% over this period.
Data for women in parliament refer to the share of women in lower/single house of parliament obtained from the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s PARLINE database. Legislative quotas are enshrined in the election law, political party law or other comparable law of a country. By definition, quotas based on election and political party laws oblige all political entities participating in elections to apply them equally. Data on quotas were obtained from the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) Global Database of Quotas for Women.
Data for gender representation in ministerial positions in national government were obtained from the Interparliamentary Union’s “Women in Politics” database. Data represent the percentage of appointed ministers as of 1 January of each year of reference. Data show women as a share of total ministers, including deputy prime ministers and ministers. Prime ministers/heads of Government were also included when they held ministerial portfolios. Vice-Presidents and heads of governmental or public agencies have not been included in the total.
Further reading
OECD (2019), Fast Forward to Gender Equality: Mainstreaming, Implementation and Leadership, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/g2g9faa5-en
Figure notes
Data for Kosovo are not included in the Western Balkan average due to missing time-series.
3.5. All Western Balkans reported lower or single house parliaments with legislated candidate quotas (situation as of March 2020). Data refer to the share of women parliamentarians recorded as of 1 January 2020 and 31 October 2012. Percentages represent the number of women parliamentarians as a share of total filled seats.
3.6. Data represent women appointed as ministers as of January 1st of each year of reference. Data for Kosovo refer to the situation as of February 2020.
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) PARLINE (database), and IDEA Quota Project (database). Data for Kosovo are from the official website (http://www.kuvendikosoves.org/).
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) “Women in Politics”, 2020 and 2012. Data for Kosovo are from the official website (http://www.kuvendikosoves.org/).
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