Women in the Executive: Which government saw more women engagement?

On September 5, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote a Facebook post on women’s representation in the government.

“There is one female minister in our government, 12 female deputy ministers. Two of the three Deputy Chiefs of Staff of the Prime Minister are women. One of the SRC Deputy Chairmen is a woman, and one of the Deputy Chairmen of the Urban Development Committee is a woman. In addition, women head the Civil Aviation Committee, the Social Security Service, and the State Tourism Committee. This list can be continued, but I think our government outstrips all previous governments in Armenia with women’s engagement” the Prime Minister wrote.

The Fact Investigation Platform has compared the number of female members of the governments of Nikol Pashinyan, Karen Karapetyan and Hovik Abrahamyan to understand whether women’s engagement has increased or decreased.

Thus, Nikol Pashinyan’s government has 12 ministers, one of whom is a woman (8.3%). Karen Karapetyan’s government had 18 ministers, one (5.6%) of them a woman. Hovik Abrahamyan’s government also had 18 ministers, 3 (16.7%) of whom were women.

The Prime Minister also referred to the number of female deputies in the government, noting that they were 12. This number is true. Women make up 26 percent of deputy ministers (Pashinyan’s government has 46 deputy ministers).

During Karen Karapetyan’s administration, there were 57 deputy ministers, only 3 of whom were female. Under Hovik Abrahamyan, there were 65 deputy ministers, 5 (7.7%) of them women.

It is worth noting here that the number of deputy ministers in the Pashinyan’s government has diminished along with the reduction in the number of ministries, and women’s engagement in them has increased.

The number of deputy prime ministers has not changed during the administrations of the 3 prime ministers, 2 out of 3 are women during Pashinyan’s administration, and 1 out of 3 for the other two. In this case too, the Prime Minister’s post is correct.

The engagement of women in the state system can also be judged by the number of female representatives in the National Assembly. In the National Assembly of the seventh convocation, which has 132 deputies, women make up 22.7 percent or 30 people.

According to data released by the Statistical Committee in October 2018, the number of women in the National Assembly in 2017 was 19 (18.1%).

Again, according to the Statistical Committee, women in the legislature made up 6 percent in 1995 and 3 percent in 1999. According to 1998 data, women made up only 2 percent of ministers and deputy ministers (not counting the law enforcement ministries).

The Statistical Committee of Armenia is due to publish “Men and Women of Armenia 2019” report in November this year. A broader picture of women’s engagement in the state system can be drawn from the data in the report.