In 2022, the global average score of the index produced by the report Women, Business and the Law has increased by only half a point to reach 77.1 out of 100, this means that women do not enjoy on average than barely 77% of the legal rights granted to men.
The report notes that at the current pace of reform, in many countries a young woman entering the workforce today will retire before she has been able to obtain the same rights as men.
“As global economic growth slows, all countries need to mobilize their full productive capacity to deal with the confluence of crises they face,” said Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the Bank Group. World Bank and Senior Vice President in charge of Development Economics.
“States cannot afford to sideline almost half of their population. The fact that much of the world does not grant women the same rights as men is not only an injustice to them, but also an obstacle to the ability of these countries to promote green development, resilient and inclusive. »
The Women, Business and the Law 2023 report examines the laws and regulations of 190 countries with regard to eight areas that influence women’s participation in economic life: mobility, work, remuneration, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship , assets and retirement.
The data, as of October 1, 2022, provides objective benchmarks against which to measure progress towards legal gender equality around the world.
Today, only 14 countries—all high-income economies—have achieved full legal parity. Nearly 2.4 billion women of working age around the world still do not enjoy the same rights as men. However, by closing the gender gap in employment, GDP per capita could increase in the long term by almost 20% on average.
In addition, studies estimate between $5 trillion and $6 trillion in global economic gains that could be achieved if women created and grew new businesses at the same rate as men.
In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal reforms were recorded in 18 countries, the lowest number since 2001. Most of these reforms aimed to increase paid leave payments for parents and fathers, remove restrictions women’s work and to impose equal pay.
It will still take 1,549 reforms to achieve substantial legal gender equality worldwide in all areas covered by the report. At the current rate, the report warns, it would take at least 50 years to achieve this goal.
The latest edition of Women, Business and the Law provides a comprehensive assessment of global progress in gender equality before the law over the past 50 years. Since 1970, the report’s global average score on the index has risen by around 30 points, from 45.8 to 77.1 out of 100.
During the first decade of this century, legal equality between the sexes made great progress: between 2000 and 2009, more than 600 reforms were introduced, with a peak of 73 reforms during the years 2002 and 2008. Since then , reform momentum has faltered, particularly in areas that affect long-established norms, such as women’s rights to inherit and own property.
The report also shows that economies with historically greater legal disparities have seen faster progress, especially since 2000. While high-income OECD economies currently have the highest level of equal economic opportunity between genders , developing economies continued to carry out important reforms.
Sub-Saharan Africa has made considerable progress in the past year, with more than half of the reforms registered worldwide in 2022: seven economies (Benin, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Malawi, Uganda and Senegal) have adopted 18 positive legal changes.
Although great progress has been made over the past five decades, much remains to be done worldwide to go beyond good intentions and achieve tangible results, namely guaranteeing equal opportunities for women before the law. Women cannot afford to wait any longer to achieve equality, and neither can the global economy.
The MENA region lags behind
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the region with the lowest score in the 2023 edition of the Women, Business and the Law report. With an average score of 53.2, it is 23.9 points below the world average (77.1).
A total of six reforms have been carried out by four of the region’s 20 economies over the past year. On Entrepreneurship, nine MENA economies score 100: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Djibouti, Arab Republic of Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Malta and Morocco.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are the only countries in the MENA region to record a score of 100 for the Remuneration indicator. For the Marriage indicator, only Malta scores 100.
Iraq obtained the maximum score for the Entrepreneurship indicator after the ban on gender discrimination in financial services, compared to a score of 75 in the previous edition of the report.
Bahrain went from a score of 75 last year for the Retirement indicator to a score of 100, thanks to the equalization of the age at which men and women can take full retirement.
Of the 44 economies in the world that scored above 90, only one is in the MENA region: Malta (91.3). Of the 20 economies in the region, only three have a score above 75: the United Arab Emirates (82.5), Malta (91.3) and Morocco (75.6).
In contrast, the West Bank and Gaza (26.3) is the lowest ranked economy in the region, followed by Yemen (26.9) and Qatar (29.4).
MENA economies perform well in the area of Entrepreneurship (average score of 86.3). For example, all economies in this region have laws allowing a woman to sign a contract, register a business and open a bank account just like a man.
In the areas of Parenthood (average score of 35), Entrepreneurship (average score of 86.3) and Retirement (average score of 58.8), the MENA region improved by 1 point, 1.3 point and 2.5 points, respectively, over the past year.
The MENA region recorded no improvements in the areas of Mobility, Labor, Compensation, Marriage and Assets in 2022. For the Entrepreneurship, Retirement and Assets indicators, no economy in the region scores 0.
Significant difficulties remain, particularly in the areas of Marriage and Parenthood, which show an average score of 35 out of 100. While only one country in the region obtains the maximum score for the Marriage indicator, none of them shows such a result for Parenthood.