Guess What #1

Sometimes statistics really, really lie. On occasion, I think they tell stories that might otherwise be overlooked. In keeping with Too Sense's ever-evolving mission, surprising statistics will be posted at irregular intervals. So, here goes...

GUESS WHAT the following countries have in common (take note of the order, it might help you out)...

It is a long list, but how long does it really take to scroll down?

Rwanda, Sweden, Cuba, Finland, Argentina, Netherlands, Denmark, Costa Rica, Spain, Norway, Belgium, Mozambique, Iceland, New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, Germany, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Peru, F.Y.R. Macedonia, Timor-L'este, Belarus, Guyana, Switzerland, Portugal, Afghanistan, Namibia, Trinidad & Tobago, Australia, Grenada, Viet Nam, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Suriname, Laos, Andorra, Ecuador, Lesotho, Monaco, Singapore, Lichtenstein, Seychelles, Honduras, Luxembourg, Mexico, Tunisia, Lithuania, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Eritrea, Senegal, Ethiopia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Estonia, China, Philippines, Serbia, Poland, North Korea, Latvia, Dominican Republic, Cambodia, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, France, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Cape Verde, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Italy, Nepal, Mauritius, Bolivia

These are all of the countries (in order) that boast a greater percentage of female participation in their national legislatures than the United States. It ranks 70th worldwide, in case you lost count. (Yes, Rwanda is the world leader; 48.8% of their legislature is female. In the US, the rate is 16.8%.)

By way of further clarification (which most statistics need!), countries with bicameral legislatures (like the US) are compared using figures from their lower houses (in the case of the United States, this is the House of Representatives), rather than combined statistics. (Given that relatively few countries have bicameral legislatures, the methodological choice is a pretty decent one. For the super curious among you, the female participation rate in the U.S. Senate is 16%.) Many of the countries on the list have constitutional mandates that reserve a certain number of seats for women. (Rwanda is one of them.) The list was updated at the end of February 2008, which means it accurately reflects the results from elections held before that date (i.e. Pakistan) but not after it (i.e. Spain). Source: International Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org)

The point here is not necessarily to advocate for quotas, but to highlight the variety of results that other countries have achieved...some of which is, I think, a bit unexpected.