women in uruguay are women who were born in, who live in, and are from uruguay. according to "countries and their cultures", there is a "very high proportion" of uruguayan women participating in the labor force of the south american country. the uruguayan legislation maintains that the women of uruguay have equal rights to power, authority, and privileges". in reality, however, women are still not occupying "higher economic, professional, political, social, and religious positions". in relation to the political arena, un women reported that a 2012 study made by the inter-parliamentary union (ipu) ranked uruguay as being "103rd out of 189 countries in terms of representation of women in parliament". uruguay low ranking is partly due to its low political participation of women: only 16% of members of parliament are women as of 2014.