Women's suffrage in Switzerland
Thomas Niederberger May 13, 2018 #democracy #politik #data analysis #women's suffrageHappy Mother's Day!
As today is mother's day I thought I could do some statistics about women's suffrage in Switzerland. On a federal level women's suffrage was introduced in 1971, but on a cantonal level the situation is much more complicated. This is how it worked in a nutshell:
- The first women could vote on a cantonal level in 1959
- By 1970 more than 50% of all women could vote
- Just two years later 99% of women could vote
- Then nothing changed for 16 years
- Finally in 1990 last canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) gave women the right to vote.
- The whole process took 31 years!
I did some plots that show how the percentage of women that could vote on a cantonal level changed over time. For the years before 1971 I could not find the demographics data about the female population, so I used the data from 1971 for the years before that. I guess the relative sizes of the cantons did not change too much during the 12 years that are relevant. So here are the plots:
