An application of statistical methods in exploring female political representation

Neravnopravnost spolova je problem svugdje u svijetu u segmentima društvenog i javnog života pa tako i u politici. Istraživanja pokazuju da Republika Hrvatska posebno nazaduje kada je riječ od zastupljenosti žena u politici. Cilj ovog rada je bio pomoću statističkih alata istražiti zastupljenost žena u političkoj sferi Republike Hrvatske koristeći hi-kvadrat test. U radu je poseban naglasak stavljen na analizu zastupljenosti žena u županijskim skupštinama te je ispitana povezanost geografskog položaja županijskih skupština i zastupljenosti žena u županijskim skupštinama. Rezultati pokazuju da postoji značajna razlika u zastupljenosti spolova na izborima 2013. godine prema geografskom položaju u slučaju tri NUTS II regije, ali ne i u slučaju dvije NUTS II regije.Gender inequality is a problem everywhere in the world in different areas, such as social or public life and politics. Research showed that the Republic of Croatia lags far behind in terms of female political representation. The main goal of this paper was to explore the female political representation in the Croatian political sphere. This was performed by using statistical tools; in particular, chi-square test was applied. The paper has a special emphasis on the analysis of the representation of women in county assemblies and examines the relationship between geographical position of county assemblies and representation of women in county assemblies. The results show that there is a significant difference in the prevalence of the male over the female in the 2013 elections to the geographical position in the case of three NUTS II regions, but not in the case of two NUTS II region