Iceland became the first European country to have a majority of women in parliament

In the parliamentary elections in Iceland, the majority of women were elected to parliament for the first time. This is also the first of its kind in Europe: never before has there been more women than men in parliament in a European country.

After Saturday’s election, 33 of the total 63 seats in Iceland’s parliament, the Althing, will be allocated to women. There were 24 seats in the previous elections.

Iceland is known as the country with the best gender equality in the world. For twelve years, the country has been at the head Annual Report of the World Economic Forum. Iceland has a women’s quota for board positions within companies, but there is no law for this in Parliament. However, some parties have a minimum number of female candidates on their electoral lists.

World leader in Rwanda

Outside of Europe, there are many countries where women hold more parliamentary seats than men. Rwanda was the first country in the world, in 2008, to have a majority of women. Besides Rwanda (61.3 percent), only Cuba (53.4 percent) and Nicaragua (50.6 percent) currently have a small majority of women in parliament.

In Europe, Sweden and Finland have led the way so far in terms of the number of women in parliament, at 47 percent and 46 percent, respectively.