In July 2022, women held 32.7% of all seats in national parliaments across the EU. Meanwhile, the world average was 26.4%. 

Worldwide, only three countries had a majority of women in their parliaments: Rwanda (61.3%), Cuba (53.4%) and Nicaragua (51.7%). An equal number of men and women (50.0%) had parliamentary seats in Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.

Source data: Inter-Parliamentary Union (Parline)

At the other extreme, there were three countries where no seats in parliament were held by women: Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu in Oceania, and Yemen in Western Asia.

This article is part of a series of articles published to mark International Women’s Day. The percentage of women in parliament is one of the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. 

Would you like to know more?

On Monday, Eurostat hosted a webinar on women in science, technology and research. You can visit the webinar’s page and watch the recording of the live event. 

Leading up to this day, Eurostat published several articles on gender that might help you learn about this issue or get an overall view of the present situation: 

• Gender employment gap among parents, Q3 2022
• Gender employment gap in part-time employment, Q3 2022
• Income gender gap by degree of urbanisation, 2021 
• Gender gap in self-employment, Q3 2022
• Jobs with the highest shares of women, Q3 2022

You can also find more data about the EU in the world by reading the publication Key figures on the EU in the world – 2023 edition, which compares a selection of statistics on the EU and many countries from across the globe.