Women’s Power Index

Created by CFR’s Women and Foreign Policy program, the Women’s Power Index ranks 193 UN member states on their progress toward gender parity in political participation. It analyzes the proportion of women who serve as heads of state or government, in cabinets, in national legislatures, as candidates for national legislatures, and in local government bodies, and visualizes the gender gap in political representation.

Scroll down below the table to view a list of current female heads of state or government, trendline of women’s representation in 193 countries, learn why women’s political representation matters, find additional resources on women’s political participation, and read the methodology.

How to Use the Index

Current Female Heads of State or Government

Women’s Representation in 193 Countries

The graphs above show that graphics show that, after years of gains, progress toward parity for women in politics has been stalling across three indicators: heads of state or government, cabinets, and national legislatures. The number of countries with women heads of state or government peaked in 2023, and the number of countries with women in 50 percent of cabinet positions has dropped to fourteen. The number of countries achieving parity in their national legislatures has risen marginally from six to seven. In 1995, the United Nations set a goal of achieving parity in parliaments within a decade; today, women comprise just 27.5 percent of legislators— marking the slowest growth in two consecutive years since 2017.

Why Women’s Representation Matters

Extensive research shows that when women lead in politics, wide-ranging benefits to society ensue. In the aggregate, women’s leadership promotes cooperative governance and peacemaking, democracy, social welfare, gender equality, and economic progress. When women make up a critical mass of representation in legislatures—around 30 percent—they are more likely to achieve those goals in spending and policy agendas.

Finding common ground. Women are more likely to cross party lines to find common ground. In the U.S. Senate, women work across the aisle to pass legislation more frequently than their male counterparts. A recent study on the U.S. House of Representatives found that Republican women gain more cosponsors than their male counterparts, and in 2024, the first Democratic and Republican women to lead both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees passed all twelve appropriations bills for the first time in five years. In other countries, cabinets with more women are more stable and greater women’s representation in parliaments is associated with less partisan hostility.

Resolving conflict. When women are signatories to peace accords, those accords are more likely to be implemented and to endure. That durability increases when women’s representation in post-conflict governments grows. In Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant women’s groups joined forces to establish a common political party in the late 1990s that advocated for the local needs of both communities. In 2005, the first woman elected as president in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace were instrumental in that country’s transition from civil war. Women have also shaped postconflict constitutions around the world, including in the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Colombia, East Timor, Kenya (1997 and 2008 processes), and Nepal.

Promoting democracy and stability. Women’s inclusion in leadership promotes democracy and stability. Women’s parliamentary representation is associated with a decreased risk of civil war and lower levels of state-perpetrated human rights abuses, such as disappearances, killings, political imprisonment, and torture. Women’s participation in government also decreases the incidence of interstate violence: a study found that a country is almost five times less likely to respond to an international crisis with violence when women’s parliamentary representation increases by 5 percent.

Advancing equality and social welfare. Greater women’s representation has led to measures to foster gender equality [PDF] and to expand social welfare. Those measures include increased spending on health and education, which has led to lower rates of child poverty and maternal mortality. During the pandemic, women-led governments responded [PDF] with swift, science-based measures and active communications. Parliaments with more women have also passed stronger climate policies that have improved air quality and promoted sustainable development. Women’s participation has also reduced corruption in the management of foreign aid.

Spurring economic growth and technological development. Increased women’s political representation leads to higher economic growth. A study of 152 countries between 1990 and 2019 found that women’s representation resulted in legislative action that reduced income inequality. And women’s representation also led to increased investment in research and development.

To be sure, electing women does not guarantee those outcomes. Holding political office is just the first step to wielding political power; in many countries, institutional structures and political systems still limit women’s ability to wield substantive influence over policy. Furthermore, women are not a homogeneous group, and not all women leaders will be advocates of peace, democracy, social welfare, and gender equality.

Headwinds for women politicians. Various factors contribute to the stalling rate of women’s gains in recent years. Economic and other structural barriers remain, and physical violence and online abuse [PDF] are increasingly targeting women in politics. The uptick in harassment and threats of violence has resulted in 83 percent of local women officials stepping away from their campaigns for office, attending in-person public events, posting on social media, and working on controversial issues. According to a 2024 study, women members of Congress were 70 percent more likely to appear in nonconsensual intimate images than their male colleagues. And generative AI has exacerbated the abuse. These revelations are spurring formation of worldwide networks to address problems, and the IPU has published an action plan to achieve parity in representation.

Additional Resources

For more work from CFR scholars, see “The Global Assault on Women in Politics” by Linda Robinson; “Ailing Democracy and Declining Women’s Representation: How They Are Related and What to Do About It,” by Linda Robinson; “How AI Reinforces Caste: Creating and Amplifying Systemic Inequality,” in Maryland Law Review (2025) by Catherine Powell; “White House Event Spotlights Biden Legacy: Fighting Against Gender-Based Violence at Home and Abroad,” by Catherine Powell; “Biden’s Progress on Women’s Rights: Good Start, but Not Fast Enough,” by Linda Robinson; “Women in the 118th Congress: Halting Progress, Storm Clouds Ahead,” by Linda Robinson.

About the Data

Political parity score: The political parity score (a number between 0 and 100) is an aggregate of women’s representation across five indicators of political participation: heads of state or government, national cabinets, national legislatures, national legislature candidates, and local legislatures. The index measures women’s representation, which refers to the numerical presence of women rather than women’s impact or policy preferences.

Each indicator was scored by converting the raw data into a ratio of women’s representation over men’s representation and then scaling the result to 100. Thus, if women hold 25 percent of the seats in a country’s national legislature, the country is given a score of 33.3 (25 divided by 75 scaled to 100) for the national legislatures indicator. The maximum score for each indicator is 100, which means that women make up 50 percent or more of the measured value for that specific indicator.

The aggregate score was then obtained by calculating the unweighted average of each of the five indicator scores (for those where data was available). For countries with the same score, we assigned them the same rank and left a corresponding gap in the index. Thus, if two (or more) countries tie for a position in the ranking, the position of those ranked below them is unaffected (i.e., a country comes in third if exactly two countries score better than it and fourth if exactly three countries score better than it).

The index will be updated on a quarterly basis with, when possible, new publicly available data. An increase or a decrease in a country’s relative rank does not necessarily mean that the country has improved or worsened its female representation in all—or any—of the five scored indicators. A change in a country’s aggregate score, however, means that women’s representation has changed in one or more of the five indicators.

Elected and appointed heads of state or government since 1946: The number of female heads of state and government between January 1, 1946, and March 11, 2026. The data for the trendline charts is calculated as of January 1 of each year. We count female heads of state or government after World War II—when the world saw a wave of independence movements—and only include 193 UN member states. This list does not include monarchs or governors appointed by monarchs, acting or interim heads of state or government who were not subsequently elected or confirmed, honorary heads of state or government, copresidents, joint heads of state, heads of government of a constituent country, or women who were or are not constitutionally the head of government but rather serve or served in a position akin to a deputy to the president. In countries with collective heads of state, the list includes only presiding members (often called the chairperson).

This indicator was scored using the following methodology: The number of years since 1946 with a female head of state or government was divided by the number of years since 1946 with a male head of state or government. The male value was calculated by subtracting the female value from the total number of years since 1946 (eighty). When a female head of state or government was suspended, we counted her time in office up until the date she was suspended, even if she officially remained in office (e.g., Park Geun-hye in South Korea and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil). If a country has had a woman head of state or government at the same time, we did not double count the time period. This data was collected using publicly available information and can be viewed in the map above.

Cabinets: Percentage of ministerial positions held by women, as of January 1, 2026. This data was collected by UN Women and can be found in the UN Women’s Women Political Leaders 2026 poster. Data for the trendline charts was collected from the archive of IPU-UN Women maps and can be found here. UN Women collected data from national governments, permanent missions to the United Nations, and publicly available information. UN Women’s count of the total number of ministers includes deputy prime ministers and ministers but excludes vice presidents and heads of governmental or public agencies. UN Women includes prime ministers or heads of government if they hold ministerial portfolios.

National legislatures: Percentage of seats held by women in lower and upper houses of national legislatures, as of January 1, 2026. This data was collected by IPU. Data for the trendline charts was calculated from the IPU’s reports from January of each year. 

National legislature candidates: Percentage of registered female candidates in the most recent elections to the lower and upper houses of national legislatures, as of March 1, 2026. This data was collected by IPU. 

Local legislatures: Percentage of elected seats held by women in local government bodies, as of March 1, 2026. This data was collected by the UN Statistics Division (UNSD), a division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. See here for the data and here for a detailed explanation of UNSD’s methodology and data collection.