One fundamental problem facing democracies is the continued lack of gender equality in political leadership. The basic facts are not in dispute: today, worldwide, women represent only one in seven parliamentarians, one in ten cabinet ministers, and, at the apex of power, one in twenty heads of state or government. Multiple factors have contributed to this situation, including structural and institutional barriers. But what is the role of political culture in this process? Do attitudes towards women as political leaders function as a significant barrier to their empowerment, and, in particular, how important is culture in comparison to structural and institutional factors?

Our thesis is that (a) contemporary attitudes toward women's leadership are more egalitarian in postindustrial than in post-Communist or developing societies; (b) traditional attitudes toward gender equality remain a major obstacle to the election of women to parliament; (c) culture continues to prove a significant influence on the proportion of women in elected office, even controlling for social structural and political institutions; but that (d) there is evidence that, as a result of modernization, these cultural barriers have been fading somewhat among the younger generation in postindustrial societies. After we set out the theoretical framework and core argument, our analysis testing these propositions will draw on evidence from the World Values Surveys / European Values Surveys for 1995–2001.