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Under-performing women MPs
For a South Asian Country, Sri Lanka might be considered relatively progressive, given the high positions that have been held by women: Sri Lanka boasts the world’s first woman prime minister (and head of state), has had a woman executive president, a woman chief justice and a woman attorney general.
Yet, the current parliament does not reflect the boast.
Women are not thriving in parliament: Only 13 of the 225 members of parliament (MPs) are women (5.8%). That puts Sri Lanka at the bottom of the pile amongst SAARC countries (behind Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives and Bhutan) in terms of percentage of women in parliament and at 131 out of 184 in the world.
If that does not seem too good, then the analysis from Manthri.lk suggests that it is in fact even worse. Manthri.lk measures productive contribution by MPs in parliament. The contribution by women is about 2.8% of the total. That means that not only are women terribly under-represented in parliament, but their average level of contribution is even worse: less than half the average level of contribution by their male counterparts!
The women in opposition (5 in number) are doing better in absolute terms than women in government, but relative to their male counterparts both in government and opposition the women are contributing only 47% (that is, 53% less than the men).
This is despite two of the women MPs in government being of Ministerial rank one as the Minister for Power and Energy and Parliamentary Affairs; and the other as the Deputy Minister for Water Supply and Drainage.
But averages do hide a wide variance amongst women’s performance.
Some women MPs do much better: There is indeed a large gap between the highest and lowest women contributor in parliament, in both the opposition and the government groups. In each case, the highest contributed over five times as much as the lowest, and about twice as much as the average contribution from their group.
Yet, the data does not exonerate any of the women MPs. The highest contributing women MPs from both the Government and the opposition contribute less than the average male MP in the respective groups. The implication is simple: women MPs need to up their game.
Why are women MPs contributing so little in parliament? Do they lack initiative or do they lack opportunities? Your thoughts and questions are welcome at www.manthri.lk/en/blog; or by text to the manthri.lk hotline: 071-4639882.
Courtesy manthri.lk