In the representation of women in political life, the UK continues to be outperformed by other democracies

In the 2012 audit of UK democracy, Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Andrew Blick, and Stephen Crone considered how women were represented in public life. They found increased participation of women in government, although more recently progress has gone in reverse. Movement towards greater gender equality in the make-up of the House of Commons has also been slow. Among the civil service and public bodies, female representation in senior posts has improved, although the UK continues to fall behind other countries.