English: Until the middle of the 20th century, few countries had political leaders that were women. These were monarchs, who rose to their positions because of their royal lineage.

Since then, many more countries have had a woman as chief executive, a trend mostly driven by democracies. This began with Sri Lanka’s democratically elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, and has also included democratic leaders that were directly elected by their citizens (instead of being elected through elected representatives), with the first being Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro in 1990.

The chart shows that this trend has accelerated recently. More than a third of countries have now had a woman leader, and more than a quarter of them have had a democratically elected one.

The next chart shows how underrepresented women nonetheless are in the highest office. At any given point in time, almost all political chief executives still have been men.