Dowload release in Georgian | English

Full poll results in Georgian | English

TBILISI – A survey of public opinion on women’s political participation in Georgia, released today by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), reveals that Georgians want more gender equality in their country and would favor greater participation by women in Georgia's political institutions. 

Sixty-four percent of Georgians say there is currently no gender equality in Georgia; this number reaches 68 percent among youth. 

The poll results also show that for 55 percent of Georgians, having 17 female members of parliament out of 150 is too few. Half of the population believes that increasing the number of women in parliament would have a positive impact. 

The introduction of mandatory gender quotas in parliament received overwhelming public support, with 68 percent saying they support mandatory quotas, and 72 percent of likely voters expressing support. Seventy percent of the population thinks that parliament should have a minimum of 30 percent women. 

“The findings from this poll are extraordinary. The majority of Georgians believe the country to be unequal for women, and the vast majority wants to do something about it. Both men and women want to see more women in elected office,” said NDI Country Director Laura Thornton. “We believe these results represent a clear public demand for action to correct the country's significant under-representation of women in elected office, and hope they will serve as ammunition for those politicians, party representatives, civic activists, and citizens advocating for change. It will be hard politically to ignore these numbers and the electorate's desire for progress and greater equality.”

The results reflect data collected from Oct. 10 through Oct. 30 using face-to-face interviews with a nationwide representative sample of Georgian speakers that included 3,885 completed interviews. The average margin of error is +/-1.6% .

NDI’s survey work is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and carried out by CRRC-Georgia. 

##

NDI is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. More information is available at www.ndi.org. 

CRRC-Georgia is a non-governmental, non-profit research organization with a mission to promote evidence-based debates on policy issues by providing reliable, up-to-date and accessible data and analysis. More information is available at http://www.crrc.ge