The chart below shows the percentage of female members of parliament in 5 European countries from 2000 to 2012

The line graph illustrates the proportion of women being elected to parliament in 5 different countries in Europe between 2000 and 2012.

Overall, all countries shared the same upward trend in the figures for female members. Surprisingly, the figure for UK experienced the most significant change within the 12 – year period.

In 2000, Germany was the country which had the highest percentage of women joining this state agency, around 35%. In contrast, that percentage in England was only 4% in that year. Meanwhile, those figures for Italy, France and Belgium were 27%, 25% and 17% respectively. During the span of time, there was a negligible rise in all the number of women being members of parliament in five countries, especially it was a significant rise in terms of UK.

In the end of this period, after experiencing a more moderate increase in the percentage of female members of parliament after 2008, Italy reached its peak at nearly 40% and surpassed other countries such as Germany with 37% and France with 32%. Despite decreasing slightly in the last 4 years, Belgium shared the same figure, 23%, with UK, the country that witnessed a considerable climb in the whole period.