"Two-Thirds of UN Member States Have Never Had a Female Head of Government" - Pew Research Center

Yonhap News Agency

It has been found that about two-thirds of United Nations (UN) member states have never had a female head of government.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center in the United States on March 2, out of the 193 UN member states, only 63 countries have ever had at least one female leader in their history. This means that 130 countries have never had a woman as their head of government.

The first case was in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, where Sirimavo Bandaranaike began her first term as Prime Minister in 1960. Subsequently, by 1970, India and Israel had also seen their first female leaders take office.

Globally, the number of countries that have produced female leaders has steadily increased since 1990. The largest annual increase occurred in 2010, when, for the first time, women became heads of government in five countries: Australia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, and Trinidad and Tobago. In 2025, Japan, Namibia, and Suriname each had their first female head of government.

Currently, women serve as head of government (such as prime minister) in 13 countries. Among currently serving female leaders, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados is the longest-serving, with a tenure approaching eight years.

Since 1960, the longest-serving female head of government was former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh. She held power for more than 20 years in total, but in 2024, she resigned and went abroad after widespread protests against the public sector job quota system escalated into a broader anti-government movement.

This analysis did not include some notable female leaders. All leaders of non-UN member states were excluded. Laura Fernandez, the president-elect of Costa Rica, was also excluded as she is scheduled to take office on May 8. Delcy Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela, and Sushila Karki, the prime minister of Nepal, were not included as they served only in an acting capacity. Some former female leaders, such as Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, were also excluded due to unclear government control.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.