Who gets unequal parliamentary representation? A comparison of India and Sri Lanka

In 2010, India celebrated its 60th anniversary as a democracy and Sri Lanka held its first post-civil war election. Yet, inequalities in parliamentary representation remain strong in both nations. This research note highlights current geographic, ideological, and demographic parliamentary inequalities in India and Sri Lanka. It finds major social groups especially women, those under age 40, the less educated, Indian Muslims, and those employed in the agricultural sector to be significantly under-represented. On the other hand, it finds provisional support for the hypothesis that Sri Lanka's proportional representation (PR) electoral system better facilitates equal representation than India's single member district (SMD) system.