RepresentWomen is dedicated to researching and identifying best practices for increasing women’s political representation, drawing on global evidence. Since 2021, our ongoing Country Brief series has explored how electoral rules and systems shape opportunities for women in politics across different parts of the world: (Post-Soviet States), (Arab States), (Latin America), (Oceania), (The European Union), and (North America: Canada, the U.S., and Mexico).
The Caribbean and Central America Brief, the seventh installment in this series, furthers our exploration of how different electoral systems and political contexts impact women’s representation in government.
Women’s representation varies considerably across the Caribbean and Central America. Voting system design plays a significant role in shaping opportunities for women to enter politics. Through our Country Brief series, we have found that countries that combine proportional representation (PR) with gender quotas tend to have the highest levels of women’s representation in politics. In further detail, we found that:
- Countries with proportional representation (PR) systems have the highest levels of women's representation, especially when combined with gender quotas. Proportional voting systems create opportunities for women and minority constituencies to achieve representation. But having a proportional voting system is not always enough on its own to advance women's representation. Two out of the three countries with high levels of women's representation in the region combine a PR system with a gender quota.
- Countries with non-proportional voting systems, such as the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system, can achieve high levels of women's representation when there are other systems and factors at play that support women's equality. Dominica's case demonstrates that the relatively smaller size of the parliament, a precedent set by a longer history of women's executive leadership, higher levels of women's representation in local offices, and parties' support all contributed to the country achieving a high level of women's political representation.
- Higher levels of women's political representation do not necessarily indicate that a country has achieved gender equality. Some countries use "genderwashing" as a strategy to enhance their image by promoting women's political representation. In others, achieving higher levels of women's representation in politics is an important step towards achieving gender equality, but more work remains to be done to advance women's rights and political participation.
Ultimately, our research on the Caribbean and Central America continues to support existing research on the combined benefits of proportional representation and gender quotas. However, this region also offers examples that challenge these findings, highlighting how national-level context-dependent factors also play a role in shaping opportunities for women in politics. As we continue to develop this series in the future, we will use this research to build better parameters for examining the impact of different voting systems on women's political representation around the world.
