National parliaments with the largest share of female MPs LAC 2024
As of June 2024, Cuba led the ranking of countries with the largest share of women in Parliament in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 55.7 percent. It was followed closely by Nicaragua, where 53.9 percent of the MPs (members of parliament) were female.
Women in politics
In the history of democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, there have been little more than a dozen females leading the executive power. Some of the most recent and notorious ones have been Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica or Xiomara Castro in Honduras. Castro has been the most recently elected female president in Latin America, making Honduras one of the only 15 countries in the world where the de facto highest position of executive power was held by a woman as of August of 2023.
Still a long way to go
The share of seats held by women in parliament in Latin America and the Caribbean region is above the global average, and it is actually the second largest one in the world, surpassed only by Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Bolivia, and Costa Rica have a higher percentage of females in parliament than countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, or France. This feat notwithstanding, Latin America and the Caribbean still struggles with a rather improvable performance in the gender gap index, especially when it comes to political empowerment. Even countries which seem to do better regarding gender equality, such as Cuba and Argentina have a low score in the category of political empowerment, which across all countries in the region tends to be remarkably lower than the score of the other categories: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, and educational attainment.
