DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7m0cfxq38
title: Women's status in Higher leadership positions in Ethiopia since 1991

description: Gender equality in decision-making positions is crucial to achieving the
 goals of good governance, peace, democracy, and inclusive/sustainable
 development. The major aim of this research article is to investigate the
 representation trend of women in higher decision-making positions over the
 last thirty years, since 1991. The federal three organs of government (law
 formulating, law enforcing, and law interpreting bodies) were the focus of
 this research. This research is a mixed type of research that inculcates
 both qualitative and quantitative data types. Secondary data sources from
 relevant government institutions were mostly used. The data analyzed
 through content analysis of documents and presented via descriptive data
 presenting techniques. The result of this research disclosed the
 underrepresentation of women’s in Ethiopian federal higher leadership
 positions across the last three decades, despite today’s some advancement
 of women’s involvement in decision-making positions. Furthermore, Women
 never held certain higher-level leadership positions, such as the Prime
 Minister position, which seems to be forbidden for women. Women made up
 23%, 19%, 19%, and 24% of the legislature, the House of Federation (HoF),
 ministerial posts, and judicial bodies, respectively. Women are visibly
 underrepresented in the Ethiopian executive body as compared to others.
 Thus, substantial policy and practical initiatives are needed to remove
 institutional, social, and economic barriers to boost women's
 advanced visibility in senior leadership roles.
description: This study employed a mixed-methods research approach by
 incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data types. The
 quantitative data provides a numerical and figurative description of
 women's representation status in higher leadership positions over the
 past 30 years, while the qualitative data explores the implications of the
 raw data by referring to related empirical studies. This study primarily
 depends on secondary data sources. Records from higher government
 institutions such as the House of People’s Representatives, the House of
 Federation, and other pertinent institutions and documents provided the
 intended secondary data for the study. After obtaining data, a desk review
 of the most important findings and a content analysis of the documents
 were conducted. The data was presented in descriptive statistics such as
 percentages, tables, and figures.
description: **Women's representation in higher leadership positions in Ethiopia
 since 1991** Access this dataset on Dryad:
 [[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7m0cfxq38](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7m0cfxq38)] The dataset contains the trend of women's presence in higher-level leadership roles in Ethiopia since 1991. It also includes guiding questions for secondary data, women's 30-year representation trend in the three government bodies, namely the legislative, executive, judiciary, and the House of Federation. The data were mostly based on secondary data gathered through content analysis of several relevant documents from government institutions. The findings demonstrate that women are underrepresented in higher-level leadership positions in Ethiopia, including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Averagely, across the last thirty years, from 1991 to 2022, women have been represented by 23%, 19%, 19% and 24% in parliament membership, cabinet positions, the House of federation, and the judiciary body, respectively. **Description of the data and file structure** The dataset organized on women's representation trend in higher leadership positions in Ethiopia in the three organs of government, which are the law-making (legislative), law-enforcing (executive), and law-interpreting (judiciary) bodies. The dataset is presented as women-in-the-legislative, women-in-the-executive, women-in-the-judiciary, women-in-the-house of federation and guiding-questions-for secondary data. The guiding questions, which were helpful in accessing all the data, have also been included in the dataset. The data are described in terms of numbers and percentages and presented using six consecutive tables.  Specific description of datafiles Guiding_questions_for_secondary-data-dox: It contains important questions prepared to investigate women's representation trend in Ethiopia's federal-level higher leadership positions across the last thirty years (1991–2022).   Women_in_Legislative_body.docx: It has included tables that can describe the trend of women's representation in the Ethiopian parliament as members, at the speaker/vice speaker positions of the parliament and at the chairperson/vice chairperson positions of parliament standing committees.  Women_in_the_executive_body.docx: Tables in this data file include information about Ethiopian women's three-decade representation path in federal top executive positions, including those of president, vice-prime minister, prime minister, and minister (cabinet positions). Women_in_the_judiciary_body.docx: This data file contains data about the trend of Ethiopian women's representation in senior roles within the judiciary and in all three levels of the nation's federal courts over the past thirty years.  Women_in_the_Upper_House_(HoF).docx: This datafile includes separate information on the thirty years of women's representation in the upper house, or House of Federation and women's participation path in various committees of the house are also included in it. This separate information is provided from the fact that Ethiopia has two houses (House of Federation and House of People's Representatives).   Abbreviations; HoF (House of Federation), HoPR (House of People Representatives), PM (Prime Minister) NA (not data available).  Upper House and House of Federation can be used interchangeably.   Lower House or House of People's Representatives can be used interchangeably.  **Sharing/Access information** Data was derived from documents from the following sources: (Ethiopian, House of people representatives, teaching and communication directorate office). (Ethiopian, House of Federation, women and children affairs office)