Cabinets and legislatures are key decision-making bodies of government and play the most important roles in society by creating laws and policies. As a result, their membership should reflect the composition of the population so each group is properly represented. Women represent somewhat more than half of the population, so it is crucial that over time their representation and effective participation in political decision-making increase, with the ultimate goal of achieving gender equality. Countries can use a broad range of compulsory and voluntary measures to speed up this process and correct for longstanding imbalances. For example, voluntary or compulsory gender quotas could be established. Legislative quotas are enshrined in election law, political party law, or any other comparable law of a country. Measures should be established to mainstream work-life balance practices at the top level of public institutions, promote gender-sensitive working conditions, and facilitate capacity and leadership development opportunities.
In 2020, 31.6% of the members of parliament (lower/single house of parliament) in the Western Balkan region were women, which is close to the OECD (31.1%) and OECD-EU (32%) averages. Higher representation of women can be found in North Macedonia (40%), Serbia (37.7%) and Kosovo (32.5%). Montenegro and Albania are close to 30%, while Bosnia and Herzegovina stands at 21.4%. All Western Balkans have introduced gender quotas that might have contributed to the large increase of the women’s share in parliaments in the region from 23% in 2012 to 31.6% in 2020. Montenegro experienced the largest increase with 14.8 p.p. reaching a share of 29.6% in 2020. The second largest increase happened in Albania where the share moved from 15.7% to 29.5% (13.8 p.p.). Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country without any change in women’s representation in parliaments from 2012-2020.
Regarding ministerial positions women held 27.7% of these positions on average in the Western Balkan region in 2020, compared to the OECD average of 32.2% and the OECD-EU average of 33.2%. In the region this marks an increase of 18.2 p.p. from 9.5% in 2012. The largest increase in women ministers occurred in Albania, where this share went from 6.7% of all ministers in 2012 to 53.3% in 2020. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the increase was almost 16 p.p. from 6.3% to 22.2%, while in Montenegro the increase was from 5.9% to 22.2%. Conversely, Serbia recorded a slight increase, from 15% to 19% over this period.
