World Bank Group chief economist and senior VP for development economics Indermit Gill notes that denying equal rights to women across much of the world is not just unfair to women, it is also a barrier to countries’ abilities to promote green, resilient and inclusive development.

According to a new World Bank report, the global pace of reforms toward equal treatment of women under the law has dropped to a 20-year low, constituting a potential impediment to economic growth at a critical time for the global economy.

In 2022, the global average score on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index rose just half a point to 77.1, indicating women, on average, enjoy barely 77% of the legal rights that men do.

Gill explained that worldwide, nearly 2.4-billion women of working age do not have the same rights as men, and he added that closing the gender employment gap could raise long-term gross domestic product per capita by nearly 20% on average across countries.

“At the current pace of reform, in many countries a woman entering the workforce today will retire before she will be able to gain the same rights as men,” the report notes.

'Women, Business and the Law 2023' assesses 190 countries’ laws and regulations in eight areas ­related to women’s economic participation, namely mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pensions.

The data offers objective and measurable benchmarks for global progress toward legal gender equality.

Today, just 14 countries – all high-income economies – have laws that give women the same rights as men.

“At a time when global economic growth is slowing, all countries need to mobilise their full productive capacity to confront the confluence of crises besetting them,” said Gill.

LEGAL REFORMS

Studies estimate global economic gains of $5- to $6-trillion if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men.

In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal reforms were recorded across 18 countries—the lowest number since 2001. Most reforms focused on increasing paid leave for parents and fathers, removing restrictions to women’s work, and mandating equal pay.

“It will take another 1 549 reforms to reach substantial legal gender equality everywhere in the areas measured by the report. At the current pace, the report, notes, it will take at least 50 years on average to reach that target,” said Gill.

Currently, equality of economic opportunity for women is highest in OECD high-income economies but important reforms have continued in developing economies.

Sub-Saharan Africa made significant progress last year. The region accounted for over half of all reforms worldwide in 2022, with seven economies—Benin, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda—enacting 18 positive legal changes. 

Gill said although great achievements have been made over the last five decades, more needs to be done worldwide to ensure that good intentions are accompanied by tangible results – that is, equal opportunity under the law for women.

Women cannot afford to wait any longer to reach gender equality. Neither can the global economy, he added.