A new World Bank report has revealed that the global pace of reforms toward equal treatment of women under the law has slowed to a 20-year low.
The World Bank stated in its report titled ‘Women, Business, and the Law,’ released on Thursday, that “reform fatigue” was a potential impediment to economic growth at a critical time for the global economy.
According to the international financial institution, the global average score on its Women, Business, and the Law index rose only half a point to 77.1 in 2022, indicating that women enjoy only 77 percent of the legal rights that men do.
According to the report, at the current rate of reform, a woman entering the workforce today would retire before gaining the same rights as men in many countries.
Indermit Gill, World Bank Group chief economist and senior vice president for development economics, commented on the report, saying, “At a time when global economic growth is slowing, all countries must mobilize their full productive capacity to confront the confluence of crises besetting them.”
“Governments can’t afford to sideline as much as half of their population. Denying equal rights to women across much of the world is not just unfair to women; it is a barrier to countries’ ability to promote green, resilient, and inclusive development.”
According to the World Bank’s latest Women, Business, and the Law report, 190 countries’ laws and regulations in eight areas related to women’s economic participation — mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pensions — were assessed.
The data, which is up to date until October 1, 2022, provide objective and measurable benchmarks for global progress toward legal gender equality.
According to the report, only 14 countries – all of which have high-income economies – have laws that give women the same rights as men.
According to the report, nearly 2.4 billion women of working age around the world do not have the same rights as men.
It stated that closing the gender employment gap could increase long-term GDP per capita by nearly 20% on average across countries.
“In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal reforms were recorded across 18 countries—the lowest number since 2001,” the report reads.
“Most reforms focused on increasing paid leave for parents and fathers, removing restrictions to women’s work, and mandating equal pay.”
The bank calculated that passing the 1,549 reforms required to achieve “substantial gender equality everywhere” would take at least 50 years at the current rate.
According to the World Bank, despite great achievements over the last five decades, more needs to be done globally to ensure that good intentions are accompanied by tangible results — that is, equal opportunity under the law for women.
