Elections
The number of female candidates running for federal office has dropped in this election, a fresh analysis shows, raising fears that this will make gender parity in the House of Commons a more distant prospect.
The main political parties except the NDP have fewer women standing compared with the 2021 general election, while the number of visible-minority candidates has also dropped for the Liberals and NDP.
Andrew Griffith, a fellow of the Environics Institute and a former director-general in the Immigration Department, who carried out the study with Professor Jerome Black, former chair of McGill’s Department of Political Science, said he was surprised by the reversal of the trend toward more female candidates since 2011.
The Conservative Party has seen a drop of almost 10 percentage points in the number of female candidates it has fielded compared with 2021. While a third of its candidates were women last time, now only 23 per cent are female, the analysis shows. The Liberals have seen a decline of about 6.5 percentage points, from 43 per cent to 36.5 per cent this time, according to the study.
Read here the full article published by The Globe and Mail on 23 April 2025.
Image by The Globe and Mail
The Women’s Fund of Central Ohio recently commissioned original research to uncover the barriers and accelerators women experience in building wealth in our region. We worked with The Center for Community Solutions to survey over 3,000 women from across Central Ohio and conduct focus groups with 126 women of varying identities, backgrounds, and life experiences.
The research, published in “Making Women Wealthy and Free” demonstrates that building financial stability and wealth has many outcomes, including increasing women’s representation in decision-making spaces. This in turn creates systemic changes that benefit women, families and communities.
Michele Swers, a political scientist at Georgetown University, has conducted research that shows that when women are elected to Congress, they tend to focus more on issues that impact women, like paid leave and intimate partner violence, than men do. The problem is women are still vastly underrepresented in political office. Currently, only 28.2% of Congressional members are women. What will it take for more women to run for office and win?
Our research shows that women candidates in Central Ohio experience challenges running for office for the following reasons:
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They don’t feel like standard campaigns are structured or designed for them or their families.
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They are expected to oversell themselves and their qualifications, something they don’t feel men are asked to do.
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Women candidates feel they have to be assertive, especially when asking for campaign funds, but not too assertive, or they could end up being viewed negatively, which doesn’t help them.
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The common stereotype that women are bad at fundraising makes it harder to raise money as a candidate and can be a barrier to running for office in the first place.
We found that women need access to more affordable childcare, paid leave, and more flexible work schedules to find a balance that works for themselves and their families. To accomplish these policy victories, public and private stakeholders and advocates have to work together.
When women build wealth for themselves, our entire economy is better off. Women need policies that will help them do that, and we know that women elected officials are more likely to make those policies a priority. Electing more women is good for families, our communities, and our country. Working to remove the barriers women face in running for office and winning is essential to fighting for the policies benefit all of us.
Read here the full article published by Gender On The Ballot on 15 April 2025.
Image by Gender On The Ballot
Is gender the sleeper issue of this election?
According to research to be published later this week by the ANU, the views of women and men in Australia are becoming more divided.
Researchers found the number of people who believe Australia has gone "too far" in promoting equality has doubled to 19 per cent.
What's more, the data suggests that gender and politics are getting more polarised and the views of women and men more divided. It is consequential for how we understand this election.
There was a moment in the second election debate where the leaders were asked to make a choice about what they regarded as their signature legacy policy.
Anthony Albanese nominated universal childcare as the change he most wanted to be known for as prime minister. Peter Dutton nominated his legacy wish as affordable energy, starting with his gas reservation plan and nuclear power stations.
The answers spoke volumes about not only their priorities and personal passions, but also who they were overwhelmingly talking to in the election campaign.
Read here the full article published by ABC News on 20 April 2025.
Image by ABC News
A recent UN Women and CRRC Georgia study has found that the vast majority of Georgians find it important to work towards a more equal society.
The survey focused on a wide range of issues related to gender equality in Georgia, from the need for quality childcare services to women’s representation in politics and business.
According to the data collected, between 79%–98% of respondents believed that improvements in social and police rights, more equal sharing of domestic work, and a greater representation of women in leadership positions were important for Georgia’s future.
Looking at the role of women in leadership positions specifically, 79% believed that more opportunities for women in business was important; 77% believed the same for women in politics; and 75% believed it was important for women to have more opportunities in decision-making roles writ large.
The survey also assessed attitudes toward fundamental rights and social policies. A large majority (83%) considered improved access to higher education for women important. A similarly large majority (84%) supported affordable healthcare for women. The idea that respect for women’s rights in all areas is essential for the country’s success had 91% agreement.
Read here the full article published by OC Media on 22 April 2025.
Image by OC Media
Despite progress towards gender equality in Australian elections, women remain underrepresented among candidates vying for office on May 3. They are also overrepresented in “glass cliff” seats, which are the ones that are difficult to win and precarious to hold.
The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at the Australian National University has analysed 591 candidates in the election by gender, political party, and the seats they are contesting.
Our report published today finds that while the major parties are increasing the number of women they pre-select, they are more likely to be running in harder-to-win seats.
From the glass ceiling to the glass cliff
Women are inching towards gender parity and now make up 45% of candidates across all parties and independents.
Labor has made the strongest gains. More than half (56%) of its candidates are women, a jump of about 10 percentage points on the previous election. By comparison, only 32% of Coalition candidates are female, an increase of just 3% on the 2022 poll.
Coalition women are not only outnumbered two to one by male candidates – 84% of them are running in risky glass cliff seats.
Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 9 April 2025.
Image by The Conversation
While some progress has been made towards gender equality in Australian elections, women remain underrepresented among candidates in the 2025 federal election, a new report from The Australian National University (ANU) shows.
The report published today by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at ANU shows fewer women than men running in the election. They’re also more likely to be running in ‘glass cliff’ seats that are hard to win and precarious to hold.
While women make up more than half (56 per cent) of the candidates being put forward by the Australian Labor Party (ALP), less than a third (32 per cent) of the Coalition’s candidates are women.
According to report co-author, Dr Elise Stephenson, there has been a notable increase in women’s representation for Labor this election compared to the last one, when 46 per cent of its candidates were women.
Read here the full article published by ANU Reporter on the 9 of April 2025.
Image by Australian National University Reporter
Last week, all UK political parties confirmed which candidates they were standing in each constituency for the 2024 general election. Including independents, a total of 4,515 candidates will be fighting for a seat in the next government.
If you’ve already tried out our candidate name game, you’d have seen how the most common name was David, owned by a whopping 104 candidates. The Johns came in second with 84 candidates called by this name, and the Pauls a close third with a total of 79.
In fact, when tallying up the most common candidate names, we noticed the top 10 in the list are all male names. It is not until reaching position 11 that you come across the female name Sarah, owned by 43 candidates. Of course, this could be due to women having more diversity in their names. However, it is less easy to dismiss that out of the 4,515 candidates standing, only 31% are women.
Read here the full article published by the Electoral Reform Society on 20 June 2024.
Image by Electoral Reform Society
On June 2, over 60 percent of registered Mexican voters went to the polls for a monumental election, with over 20,000 public offices up for grabs at the federal and local levels. This election was historic, as a woman was elected to hold the highest office in Mexico for the first time. This comes more than 70 years after women gained the right to vote and stand for election. Over the past few years, women in Mexico have gone from being fringe operatives in the political arena to taking center stage. Still, this transformation took time and deliberate action to achieve.
While gender quotas have been used in Mexico since the early 2000s, they were not enough to achieve equality. In 2014, Mexico transitioned from relying on its gender quota system to a “gender parity system,” which mandates equal opportunity based on gender in candidate lists for local and national offices. This transition did not occur naturally; it resulted from consistent, permanent debate at all levels by activists, institutions, academics and women in politics who worked together across party lines to close the political gender gap.
The Impact of Gender Quotas in Mexico
Mexico’s 2002 first legislative quota passed by Congress required that 30 percent of candidates be women, with specific penalties for parties in cases of non-compliance. In 2008, the gender quota was raised to 40 percent, but parties were exempt from complying in cases where candidates were selected in democratic primaries. Six years later, in 2014, gender parity mandates were enshrined in Mexico’s constitution, marking the highest protection standard for women’s political rights. The impact of these hard-fought efforts has been undeniable; women’s participation in Congress has steadily increased with every reform.
Read here the full article published by Ms. Magazine on 11 June 2024.
Image by Ms. Magazine
In India, as in many democracies around the world, there has long been a discernible gender gap in citizens’ political participation. For decades, Indian men were significantly more likely to cast their ballots on election day compared to women. It is noteworthy, therefore, that in the country’s 2019 general election, the historic gap between male and female turnout came to an end; for the first time on record, women voters turned out to vote at higher rates than men (see figure 1). Predictions for India’s upcoming 2024 general election suggest that this trend is likely to continue.
Although the gap between male and female voter turnout in India has been gradually shrinking in recent years, the convergence in electoral participation is nevertheless surprising for multiple reasons. First, as noted by Franziska Roscher, the increase in female turnout in India is occurring while female labor force participation—an important driver of women’s political participation—remains low compared to peer economies. Second, national-level data from the National Election Study (NES), conducted by the Lokniti Program of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and other smaller studies confirm that women lag men across all measures of nonelectoral political engagement. For instance, data from two separate primary surveys—conducted in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by political scientists Soledad Prillaman and Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner, respectively—demonstrate that while the gender gap in voter turnout has closed, gaps are all too visible in other forms of sustained political engagement, such as contacting elected representatives, attending public meetings, and participating in campaign activities. Third, women continue to be underrepresented in India’s national parliament and its state assemblies.
Read here the full article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on 5 April 2024.
Image source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Introduction
Over the last twenty years, the world has witnessed significant shifts towards greater gender equality in politics, which in turn has had positive implications for democracy and society at large.
Mexico has witnessed a systematic incorporation of gender perspective, equality, and parity in public life, signifying a transformation of women's ability to participate in the country's future. The prime example is the National Electoral Institute (INE) mandate, later ratified by the Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), for political parties to guarantee gender parity in all upcoming gubernatorial elections of 2024: Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Mexico City.
Unfortunately, as women's participation in politics rises, an increase in political violence that explicitly targets women has also occurred. The 2020-2021 electoral process was the most violent against Mexican women.
Mexico´s political system is awash with political violence that explicitly targets and affects women, obstructs social justice, and hinders democracy. The advances in female political participation have been met with resistance as men, territorial interest groups, and political elites seemingly feel threatened by increasing female power and respond with violent actions to uphold the traditional system of politics to deter women’s independent participation.
Read here the full article published by the Wilson Center on 13 March 2024.
Image source: Wilson Center
In 1906, Finland became the first country in Europe to grant women the right to vote, with the adoption of universal suffrage, at the same time as it won its autonomy from the Russian Empire. The following year, Finnish women were able to exercise this right in the general elections. Throughout the twentieth century, women in Europe and around the world fought long and hard to gain the right to vote without any additional conditions to those required of men. In some countries, only widows were allowed to vote as a first step towards electoral emancipation (in Belgium, for example, until 1921). In other countries, such as Bulgaria, the right to vote was initially reserved for mothers of legitimate children and exclusively for local elections. In Portugal, only women with a university degree were allowed to vote from 1931 on. In Spain it was not until post-Franco democratisation and the 1976 elections that Spanish women regained the right to vote, initially acquired in 1931 before the civil war. This year France is celebrating the 80th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Cypriot women won the right to vote at the same time as their male counterparts when the Republic was created in 1960. This can be explained quite simply by the fact that, at that time, such discrimination could no longer be justified. So, it took a good part of the twentieth century to get there...
Read here the full article published by the Foundation Robert Schuman on 5 March 2024.
Image source: Foundation Robert Schuman
Independent states in the Pacific region have the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world. Fewer than 7% of Pacific politicians are women, compared with 27% globally. The absence of women’s voices in political decision-making has been consistently raised in regional forums, although progress has been slow. Yet, in November 2022, a milestone was reached: for the first time, there was at least one elected woman in every Pacific parliament.
Click here to read the full article published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on 17 October 2023.