Mexico and Nicaragua Achieve Gender Parity in Government

As we celebrated International Women’s Day last week, we decided to look into women’s representation in Latin America’s governments. Although most of the continent is still far from achieving gender parity and providing safety and equal pay for women, we found a few indicators that are positive outliers.

Mexico and Nicaragua now have half of their parliaments composed of women. Since 2000, the percent of women elected to serve in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies has increased 3x. The share of women in Nicaragua’s and Mexico’s parliaments is now greater than most developed nations: almost double the United States’ (28%), over five times greater than Japan’s (9.7%), and even greater than Sweden’s (47%), which has historically had a high percentage.

A series of legal initiatives can be attributed to the increase. In 2008, “Anexo 13” was introduced into the Mexican legislature, stating that a portion of government spending must go towards programs that promote gender equality. In 2014, a law was passed mandating that all parties must have a 50-50 gender split among their candidates at a federal level. Similar quotas have been introduced by Nicaragua. In a region where there’s still much to be done to reach equality, we are happy to see that progress is happening, at least in some areas.

Airbnb is hiring a Consumer Insights Lead in 🇲🇽/🇧🇷.

Requirements: 10+ years of research management experience.

Hiring Managers: Respond to this email if you’d like to feature a role in our newsletter.