[This year, 45 countries in the United Nations held national elections to decide their top leadership. Of those, only four selected a woman to become head of state or government, according to CNN’s analysis of International Foundation for Electoral Systems data.
While the US had the opportunity to elect its first female president, voters who hoped to see the glass ceiling broken saw a defeat for the second time in eight years. Three of the countries that picked a female leader in 2024 – North Macedonia, Namibia, and Mexico – did so for the first time in their nation’s history.
In the post-World War II period, the first woman was elected to lead a UN country 64 years ago. A look at where and when women have secured national leadership positions since then shows that many more countries have seen their first female leaders in the past two decades.
Forty-nine UN member states have had one female leader in the last seven decades. Another 18 countries have had two female leaders, nine countries have had three female leaders, and just two countries – Finland and Iceland – have been headed by four different female leaders. Still, a woman has never served as head of state or government in 115 UN member countries.
The first continent with a UN member state to have a female leader after WWII was Asia. In 1960, Sri Lanka – known then as Ceylon – elected its first female prime minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She entered politics after her husband was assassinated while serving as prime minister.
Since then, women have led 13 other countries in Asia. Many of them came into politics through their husbands or fathers, in former colonial countries.
Asia also leads when it comes to women’s tenure in power, with Sheikh Hasina holding the record for the highest number of years served by a woman as a national leader. She was prime minister of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 until her resignation in August 2024 following massive anti-government protests.
The first woman to become head of state in the Americas was Isabel Perón, who was the first female head of state in the region after her husband, Juan Perón, died in office in 1974. As the vice president, she took over many of his duties when he became ill and was sworn in to the presidency after his death.
In Africa, the first woman to become a head of state was Elisabeth Domitien, who was appointed prime minister of the Central African Republic in 1975. The first elected female head of state in Africa was Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who became president of Liberia in 2006.
In Europe, Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister in 1979. A few months later, Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo of Portugal became the continent’s second female head of government.
Experts say it’s important for women to play key roles in government because it broadens representation. “We know that there is some sort of power to seeing people like you represented. That matters,” said Farida Jalalzai, associate dean for global initiatives and engagement and professor of political science at Virginia Tech. “You see more examples of diverse people in these roles, whether they’re nominees, whether they’re presidents, whether they’re prime ministers, and it breaks down conceptions of what we think those leaders should look like.”
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