There are many ways to enhance the representation of women. Proportional systems tend to result in the election of more women, primarily by eliminating the disincentive inherent in FPTP systems of needing to present a single "most acceptable" candidate. Electoral systems which use reasonably large district magnitudes encourage parties to nominate women on the basis that balanced tickets will increase their electoral chances. Some List PR countries also require that women make up a certain proportion of the candidates nominated by each party.

In addition to the choice of electoral system, there are also a number of other strategies that can be used to increase the number of women representatives.

• First, there are reserved seats, where a certain number of seats are set aside for women in the legislature. These seats are filled either by representatives from regions or by political parties in direct proportion to their overall share of the national vote. Reserved seats typically exist in plurality/majority electoral systems, and are often entrenched in a country’s constitution. In India, seats on local authorities in some states are divided into three groups: at each election, only women may be nominated for one group of seats, thereby guaranteeing a minimum of one-third women elected.
• Second, the electoral law can require political parties to field a certain number of women candidates for election. This is most often done in PR electoral systems, for example in Namibia (30 per cent of candidates at the local level) and Peru (30 per cent of candidates). It is also required in the List PR component of Bolivia’s MMP system (30 per cent of candidates). However, the laws do not always guarantee that the target will be met unless there are strict placement mandates and enforcement mechanisms guaranteeing that women are placed in electable positions on party lists (i.e., positions on a party’s list that are likely, given the party’s expected number of votes, to be included in the party’s legislative delegation).
• Third, political parties may adopt their own internal quotas for women as legislative candidates. This is the most common mechanism used to promote the participation of women in political life, and has been used with varying degrees of success all over the world: by the ANC in South Africa, the Peronist Party (PJ) and the Radical Civic Union (UCR) in Argentina, CONDEPA (the Conscience of the Fatherland) in Bolivia, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Mexico, and the Labour parties in Australia and the UK, and throughout Scandinavia. The use of women-only candidate short-lists by the Labour Party at the 1997 UK elections almost doubled the number of female MPs, from 60 to 119. In 2004, 14 countries had quotas entrenched in the constitution, 32 countries had quotas provided for by legislation, and at least 125 parties in 61 countries had adopted their own voluntary party quotas. In terms of electoral system type, 17 countries with plurality/majority systems had quotas, and there were 15 in mixed electoral systems and 45 in PR systems. Two of the ‘others’—Afghanistan and Jordan—used quotas.

 

Systems that guarantee women representation in the legislature vary where both their success and their consequences are concerned. For example, reserved seats may help guarantee that women make it into elected positions of office, but some women have argued that quotas end up being a way to appease, and ultimately sideline, women or to privilege the female relatives and friends of traditional male politicians rather than encouraging females to develop careers in politics, which can take many years. Since entry into politics is often done at the local level, even by male politicians, it may make more sense to institute quotas, at least initially, at the local rather than the national level.

Being elected to a legislature does not necessarily mean being given substantive decision-making power, and in some countries women legislators, particularly those elected from reserved or special seats, are marginalized from real decision-making responsibility. Yet in other countries, women have used the position afforded to them by quotas to make significant contributions to policy making and influence ‘traditional’ policy making.

Fur further details and data, see the IDEA/Stockholm University Global Database for Electoral Quotas for Women at www.quotaproject.org.