Women's right to vote

Understanding this map

What the map shows

Each year, each country falls into one of four cases, according to the V-Dem project: women vote on the same terms as men; only some women vote, or on stricter terms (in the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1928 a woman had to be 30, a man 21); women are excluded while men vote; or there are no national elections at all (dictatorship, war, occupation, colony), and nobody votes.

Not all men could vote either

Before 1914 male suffrage was often restricted: you had to pay enough tax, own property, be literate or have a fixed address, which mostly excluded workers, servants and poor peasants. Around 1900 only 60% of adult men voted in the United Kingdom, 25% in Sweden and Italy, 5% in Japan. France stood out with universal male suffrage from 1848. The map compares women with men; the tooltip gives the actual share of adult women and men who can vote.

“Same rights” does not mean “everyone votes”

The criterion compares women with men. In segregated South Africa, white women vote from 1933 like white men, but the black majority, men and women, stays excluded until 1994: so the tooltip also gives the share of adult women who can vote (20% in 1933). In the United States, Southern laws keep many Black citizens from voting until the 1960s. And voting does not mean choosing freely: that is what the democracy index measures.

The dates

New Zealand is the first country where women vote (1893), followed by Australia (1902) and Finland (1906, first vote in 1907). In France the ordinance dates from April 1944 and women first vote in 1945; in Switzerland in 1971 at federal level. V-Dem generally records the year the right is first applied, which can differ by a year or two from the law. For countries whose series starts at independence with the right already granted (former USSR, former Yugoslavia, Poland, Israel…), the actual year is not known here: they are left out of the ranking.

The chart

It gives the share of adult women who have the right to vote, country by country, and as a population-weighted average for the world and the continents. Countries with no national elections that year are not counted: otherwise the curve would drop at every coup or suspension of elections (in China during the Cultural Revolution, for instance).

Limits

Only national elections count: Saudi women voted for the first time in 2015, in municipal elections, but Saudi Arabia still has no national elections. These are expert assessments based on electoral laws; a colony is rated on the elections actually held there. Data start in 1900.