Women in Parliament: The Effectiveness of Quotas

Abstract

In 2007, Spain ranks eighth among countries in the world as regards the presence of women in the lower chamber of parliament (the Congress of Deputies), with 36 percent female deputies (Inter-Parliamentary Union; www.ipu.org; April 2007). How has Spain reached such a vanguard status regarding the feminization of parliament and passed many other countries economically more developed and with a longer democratic past, such as France, Great Britain, or the United States? The approval and implementation of women’s quotas in left-wing political parties is the main causal factor that explains the feminization of the current Spanish parliament. Quotas were adopted owing to the tireless and skillful pressure of party feminists. In the last two or three decades, other factors have created an environment favorable to the increase in the presence of women in the Spanish parliament. One of them was the proportional representation system to elect members of the Congress of Deputies. Other facilitating factors include cultural and socioeconomic variables—since the Spanish society and polity became increasingly secular and conceptions of gender roles more egalitarian, female participation in the labor market increased without interruption and half of the population with university degrees is female.