Statistics by Country

Column 2 gives the voting Rule and the average number of seats in a district.
"PR" countries use a form of proportional representation.
"SWD" countries use winner-take-all, single-winner districts.
"Mx" systems elect a mix of reps by PR and SWD, usually plurality.

The Turnout of voters is a measure of their motivation to participate.

Women shows the percentage of legislative seats won by women.

Mjr= single-seat districts using runoff or STV to require a majority.
Plr= single-seat districts using plurality.

The most unusual case is Australia. Its lower house has the highest percentage of women for any SWD legislature, 22.3%. It uses STV for 1 winner which Australians call "Alternative Vote" and Americans call "Instant Runoff". As those names imply it 1) lets a voter rank many candidates and 2) combines the primary and general elections so there are often more than 2 important candidates; this encourages voter participation; turnout is about 90% ('though voting, like taxes and jury duty is mandatory for citizens.)

Australia's upper chamber is elected by multi-winner STV. Each province returns 5 senators. This filled 32.9% of the seats with women after the October 1998 election. The women's share of seats might be even higher is there were more than 5 seats in each district but 1) 33% compares well with other countries and voting rules and 2) more seats lead to more candidates which lead to longer, more difficult ballots for voters.

Ireland also uses multi-winner STV but most districts return only 3 or 4 reps.

Turnout and representation by women may be influenced by variables other than voting rules:

The newer constitutions are more likely it is to use PR.

But the age of the democracy does not correlate with accurate democracy because the oldest democracies (UK, USA) have not modernized and the newest democracies have not yet stabilized.

Language and culture, particularly religion, education of women,

Latitude: The accuracy of democracy correlates with distance from the Equator. Even within a cultural region such as Europe or within 1 country. There are exceptions such as Costa Rica. But latitude can not explain why PR is 3 times more likely to elect women within a single country such as Germany or New Zealand.

Sources: the Center for Voting and Democracy, Inter-Parliamentary Union.