Women in Singaporean politics

Historically, women's involvement in Singapore's political landscape was limited. However, since 1984, there has been a steady rise in female participation, with more women contesting elections across both ruling and opposition parties, as well as taking on key political roles.

Singapore has practised universal suffrage from the outset of its democratic elections, unlike countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Early women representatives in the Legislative Council were mostly English-educated and middle-class. As women voters increased from 8 percent to 50 percent in 1955, Chinese-educated women leaders gained prominence. Some, including Linda Chen Mock Hock, were linked to communism and were later suppressed under Lim Yew Hock's anti-communist administration.

In 1959, four female People's Action Party (PAP) candidates, including Chan Choy Siong and Ho Puay Choo, entered the Assembly.^[1] Two women later defected to Barisan Sosialis. After Chan's retirement in 1970, there was a 14-year absence of women in parliament.^[2] Female representation returned in 1984 with Dixie Tan, Aline Wong, and Yu-Foo Yee Shoon of the PAP. By 1988, four women were in parliament, but numbers dropped after 1991. From 2011, the number of women candidates and MPs steadily grew.^[3] The PAP Women's Wing was formed in 1989. In 1992, Kanwaljit Soin became the first female Nominated Member of Parliament, followed by others like Eunice Olsen, Claire Chiang, Braema Mathiaparanam and Yip Pin Xiu.^[4]

Female politicians have since held higher office. Grace Fu became the first female Leader of the House in 2015, while Lim Hwee Hua was Singapore’s first female Cabinet minister in 2009, though she lost her seat to the Workers' Party (WP) in 2011. That same election saw the entry of WP's Sylvia Lim as the first elected female opposition MP, and Lina Loh as an NCMP. In 2013, Halimah Yacob became the first female Speaker and later, in 2017, the first female President.^[5] In 2020, Josephine Teo led a PAP team as anchor minister,^[6] while WP gained ground with He Ting Ru and Raeesah Khan, the latter being the youngest and first minority opposition MP.^[7] Hazel Poa of the Progress Singapore Party became the third female NCMP,^[8] though she later lost her seat.^[9] In 2025, WP retained its female MPs He and Lim, and added Eileen Chong as the fourth female NCMP.^[10]

The table below shows the comparison and number of female candidates who contested over the years since the first post-independence election in 1968, and eventually elected in office:^[11]

Since the 1990s, the number of women participating in politics has progressively increased, and it hit double digits towards the 3rd millennium and the representation for female MPs increase per every election. There are currently 31 elected women parliamentarians out of a total of 97 elected members. The list of women parliamentarians are listed in alphabetical order by surnames.

• Wong Aline and Leong, W. K., Singapore Women: Three Decades of Change, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1993 (ISBN 981-210-031-8).

• List of Current MPs