Women in National Parliaments by Country: August 2026 Ranking

Overview of the August 2026 parliamentary gender ranking

The ranking compares representation within the same type of chamber: lower houses in bicameral parliaments and the sole house in unicameral parliaments. It does not combine upper houses with lower houses, and the election dates shown beside countries are not the observation dates. Every reported percentage is from the IPU's 1 August 2026 snapshot.

Eight of the 183 ranked countries had at least 50% women in the relevant chamber. At the opposite end, 59 had fewer than 20%. The median country value was 26.5%, calculated from all 183 IPU-published percentages, whereas the IPU global seat-weighted average was 27.2%; those two figures have different denominators.

The ranked list excludes missing percentages rather than treating them as zero. It also preserves tied ranks from the IPU publication, so a rank can appear more than once.

Top 10 countries for women's parliamentary representation

The Top 10 begins with Rwanda at 63.8% and ends with Cabo Verde at 47.2%, a 16.6-percentage-point spread. Five of these ten countries are in the IPU Americas region.

Percent of women in filled lower or single parliamentary chamber seats, 1 August 2026

Tied places retain the published IPU rank: Andorra and the United Arab Emirates are both rank 7 at 50.0%.

Chart: Top 20 by women in the lower or single chamber

Each bar uses the same IPU-published country percentage as the tables, divided by the 63.8% leader value to set the bar length. The percentages are not shares of a 100% total across countries.

Source: IPU published percentage of filled lower/single-house seats as of 1 August 2026. Chart scale: Rwanda = 100% of the maximum bar, not 100% women.

Methodology, data quality and exclusions

Calculation methods: the official lower/single-house global average is 10,022 women / 36,778 filled seats with known member gender × 100 = 27.24999%, shown by IPU as 27.2%. StatRanker's unweighted country mean = sum of 183 published percentages / 183 = 26.7% (one decimal); median = position 92 of the 183 values ordered by percentage = 26.5%. The unweighted country median and mean are calculated_value analytical summaries from official observed inputs, not official IPU country-average statistics, estimates or forecasts.

Reconciliation check: summing the 183 reported row-level female counts and filled-seat counts yields exactly 10,022 / 36,778, matching the IPU global table's known-gender totals. The IPU separately lists 37,821 total lower/single-house MPs; its 1,043-seat difference is associated with membership lacking a known gender breakdown in the underlying published tally. Countries without a numeric percentage are not assigned zero.

Limits: shares reflect filled seats, not all constitutionally authorized seats, candidate shares, equal voting power, election quality, cabinet positions or women's influence over legislation. Upper-chamber figures are not ranked here. Percentages are rounded to one decimal and can change when IPU updates the monthly report. Historical election dates, including Libya (2014) and Yemen (2003), should not be mistaken for an election held in August 2026.

Full country ranking: all 183 reported parliamentary percentages

Search countries, filter by IPU region or status, reorder existing rows, or limit the view to the Top 10 or Top 20. The published rank remains unchanged when you sort alphabetically or by percentage.

August 2026 ranking (IPU Parline) · Lower or single chamber · Percent women

The rank column reproduces IPU's tied positions. The percentage, women-count, filled-seat-count and election month/year are as published for the 1 August 2026 snapshot. All 183 rows remain visible when scripts are disabled.

Four findings from the August 2026 country data

How to interpret a country's rank

A higher rank means a larger share of women among the members of the relevant parliamentary chamber on 1 August 2026. It is not a ranking of democratic quality, government gender equality policies, women's participation in elections, or the share of women in a cabinet. A bicameral country's upper chamber may have a substantially different percentage.

Countries should not be compared using election months as if they were observation years. Likewise, 0.0% is an observed number for Oman, Tuvalu and Yemen in the IPU table; it must not be confused with an unavailable percentage for another country. The global 27.2% figure is seat-weighted, while the country median of 26.5% gives one observation to each of 183 listed countries regardless of chamber size.

FAQ: women in national parliaments in August 2026

Sources and reproducibility