Women may sometimes gain the support of Asian voters, but do they have any influence within parliament to shape political procedures, the political agenda, and public policy? A key issue is whether women hold committee leadership positions and sit on powerful committees or whether they are relegated to more passive roles in parliament such as membership on committees with relatively little influence. Whereas the comparative study of women on parliamentary committees has been examined in considerable detail in other world regions such as Latin America, there has been little research on this topic in Asia. In response to this gap, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of the gender composition of parliamentary committees across 36 countries of Asia. It documents not only on which committees are women present and absent, but also the extent to which women are on powerful committees and hold leadership positions as committee chairs. Drawing on statistical analysis of an extensive dataset of the demographic characteristics of Asian parliamentarians, it then offers some exploratory analysis of the potential roles factors such as seniority, incumbency, and partisanship play in explaining variation across and within countries.
