Shattering the Political Glass Ceiling: Exploring the Rise of Women Political Leaders

With voters heading to the polls in countries around the world, 2024 has been dubbed the year of elections. While a recent change in the United States election will put a woman at the top of a major party ticket, a June presidential election just over the border in Mexico stood out. Earlier this summer, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was elected president of Mexico, shattering the political glass ceiling in North America. In second place came Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, another woman. Sheinbaum–in addition to perhaps being born a leader (and having a Nobel-prize winning brain)–and Gálvez are the product of an enabling environment–otherwise, how to explain the rise in women’s political leadership only in the second half of the 20^th century? The first woman ever to be elected to the highest office (in this case, the office of prime minister) occurred in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) in 1960.

This blog, part of CGD’s work on women’s leadership, focuses on political leaders and explores which conditions enable women’s leadership by contrasting Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a region that is ahead of most in women’s presence in politics, with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that is currently some steps behind. The 42 countries in LAC have had a total of 26 women heads of state, presidents, or prime ministers (PMs), with seven incumbent women heads of government (including Sheinbaum who will assume office on October 1, 2024). The 48 countries in SSA have had a total of 16 women heads of state, presidents, or PMs, with four incumbent ones.[1] Women currently hold 36 percent of parliamentary seats in LAC and 27 percent in SSA. Countries in LAC also have a higher share of women cabinet ministers (Figure 1).    

Figure 1: Global Prevalence of Women Cabinet Ministers as of 1 January 2024

We look at historical and structural factors as well as proximate facilitating conditions to characterize the enabling environment for the emergence of women political leaders.

1. Historical and structural factors frame the rise of women political leaders in nation states

Colonization suppressed women’s political voices in SSA 

Colonization in SSA skewed the political system towards male representation by only allowing men in government administration, despite a history of women’s political leadership and comparative gender equality in the region. While there was not a similar tradition of women’s leadership in LAC prior to colonization, the much earlier advent of independence created space for the emergence of women rights advocates, leading the fight for women’s political rights in regional and international fora (see more on this below).

Democracy is an enabler for women’s representation in politics

Democracy – representative democracy and more recently participatory democracy, where grassroots and other citizen movements (including women’s movements) have risen to co-exist with traditional political parties, is an additional enabler for the rise in women’s political leadership. Authoritarian regimes, with few exceptions, are led by men. Democracy is more firmly rooted and widespread in LAC than in SSA, with a much longer history of independent nations. Most LAC nations had gained independence by 1836, while most SSA countries did not gain independence until the 1950s and 1960s.

Demographic imbalances shape women’s opportunities for leadership

As every politician knows, numbers rule elections. Most countries in LAC have entered an advanced stage of the demographic transition (Figure 2.1), which results in a predominance of women in the population, in older cohorts, and in the electorate (as it is the case in contemporary Europe and North America). Women outlive men in most societies and they both vote more often for women candidates and give more weight to women’s issues in elections and in legislation. The women’s vote has helped elect women candidates in LAC (and in Europe). SSA, on the other hand, has a much younger population comparatively speaking (Figure 2.2).  Most countries are in the first stages of the demographic window of opportunity and very few countries are in more advanced stages of the age and fertility transition.  

Demographic imbalances can also be forged by violent conflict, which has unduly affected countries in SSA since the late 1980s. Since mostly men fight and die in wars, premature male mortality or ‘missing’ men in prime adult age groups characterizes countries that have undergone violent conflict. These countries experience a demographic imbalance with a predominance of women in the population, in prime adult years in this case. Women end up filling in political candidacies and posts because there is a dearth of men– helping to explain the dominance of women political leaders in countries like Rwanda (where an estimated 80 percent of the population was female in some communities after the genocide). In Liberia, women’s political advocacy initiated during the civil war continued in mobilization of the female vote that led to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s election into office.

Figure 2.1: Population distribution by age and sex for Latin America and the Caribbean

Figure 2.2: Population distribution by age and sex for Sub-Saharan Africa

Changing cultural norms about gender roles and the perception of women as fit for political life create a conducive environment

Norms and beliefs about gender roles and attributes have changed drastically and rapidly in the past decades worldwide. Not too long ago women were not considered fit to vote, least of all hold public office. Public opinion has changed over the past 30 years in LAC more than in SSA. For example, the World Values Survey tracks the share of a country’s population that agrees with the statement–“Men make better political leaders than women do”. Overall, there is a lower level of agreement with this statement in LAC countries, indicating more positive attitudes towards women’s political leadership, with fewer than a third of respondents agreeing with this statement in all countries surveyed in the most recent wave (Figure 3.1) compared to 40 to 75 percent agreement in SSA countries (Figure 3.2). Additionally, there has been a sharp decline in the likelihood of agreement with this statement over time in LAC, with stagnant or increasing levels of agreement in SSA countries, indicating that current norms about gender roles and perceptions of women’s fitness for political life are more conducive to women’s political leadership in LAC than in SSA.

Figure 3.1: Belief that men make better political leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean (1994-2022)

Figure 3.2: Belief that men make better political leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa (1994-2022)

2. Proximate conditions take advantage of historical and structural factors to make the difference in the short-term

LAC witnessed some of the earliest manifestations of  advocacy for women’s entrance into politics  

LAC led the first wave of women’s political activism in the 20^th century–setting up the first ever interregional women’s advocacy organization (Inter-American Commission on Women) in the 1920s; and advocating for women’s rights in the creation of the UN and the UN charter in 1945. This early legacy likely gave the region a head start in promoting women’s political leadership.  Argentina, for instance, was the first country in the world to introduce in 1991 a quota for women’s representation in legislative elections.

The growth of women’s movements internationally, in sync with the UN (and the UN World Women’s conferences that took place in 1975-95), prompted states to increase women’s political participation, accounting for a 10-20 percent increase of women’s presence in national legislatures worldwide, according to an event history analysis of more than 150 countries over 110 years (1893-2003).

Political quotas and affirmative legislation have helped ensure that women qualify as candidates for political office

The early and widespread adoption of political quotas in LAC help to explain LAC’s numbers and contributed directly to the recent outcome of the presidential election in Mexico where, for the first time ever, the two leading candidates were women. Notably, post-conflict reconstruction and political regime change have also provided opportunities for progressive constitutional reform in a few countries in SSA, with South Africa adopting a new constitution after the end of Apartheid in 1993 (which included the establishment of a Commission for Gender Equality and the prohibition of gender discrimination) and Rwanda adopting a new constitution in 2003 after the end of its post-conflict transition period (with a 30 percent gender quota for all elected government positions).

Modeling effects are another likely proximate contributor, although this factor is less well-documented

Women in political office break ‘glass ceilings’ and beget women in political office. Not too long ago it was unheard of to have woman heading a defense ministry. This has changed. Liberia is the latest country naming a woman to this position in February of this year. Already by 2012, women had been appointed to the defense portfolio in 41 countries, and were more likely to come to power in states that had other women in political office. 

What does this analysis of the enabling environment for women political leaders tell us about gender equality in other domains?

The global rise of women political leaders since 1960 suggests that many countries have taken strides towards establishing the necessary enabling environments for women’s political leadership. However, having more women in political leadership positions does not automatically spur progress towards gender equality more broadly. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index tracks gender equality across four domains. While gender gaps in educational attainment and health and survival are relatively similar across geographic regions, gaps in political empowerment and economic participation vary widely. SSA has among the lowest gender gaps in economic activity (which includes labor force participation and estimated income earned), while LAC and European countries score around the same level, despite having much smaller gaps in political empowerment (Figure 4). Paradoxically, having high levels of women’s political representation does not seem to make much difference for levels of women’s economic participation.

Figure 4: Gender gaps in political empowerment and economic participation, by region

Altogether, this analysis suggests two key takeaways. First, context matters for women’s political leadership. Women political leaders emerge through a combination of historical and structural factors, along with proximate facilitating conditions. While individual women can have strong leadership potential, establishing an appropriate environment provides a platform for widespread improvements in women’s political representation. We cannot expect broad increases in women’s political leadership without there being systemic changes. The contrasting experiences of LAC and SSA countries demonstrate how legacy influences women’s political leadership and how concerted measures to broaden political representation can have tangible impacts.  

Second, increasing women’s political leadership is not sufficient to spur gender equality more broadly. Levels of women’s economic participation have not mirrored levels of women’s political empowerment globally, pointing to a disconnect between women’s political leadership and women’s economic activity. Evidently, political leaders must intentionally translate structural and proximate changes into opportunities for women’s empowerment. The rising number of women political leaders provides an opening for policy engagement to increase the adoption of evidence-based approaches to promote women’s economic empowerment and advance gender equality, ultimately improving countries’ economic wellbeing.  

[1] Countries are classified into regions based on the World Bank’s country classifications.