 "No true equality in even wealthiest nations: What new World Bank report on women reveals")
Women may have come a long way, but societies around the world still have a long way to go when it comes to making the two genders truly equal.
That’s the summary of a new report by the World Bank.
The bank’s 10th annual Women, Business and the Law report has shone a spotlight on several issues that women face in even the wealthiest nations around the world.
But what are the takeaways from the report?
Let’s have a closer look:
What are the takeaways?
The report stated that women enjoy just 64 per cent of the legal protections as men do.
That figure is lower than the previous estimate of 77 per cent.
Even the wealthiest nations do not provide women with true equal opportunity.
It examined a range of factors including safety, childcare, pay, marriage, parenthood, workplace, mobility, assets, entrepreneurship and pensions.
The lower number comes after the introduction of safety and childcare as two new factors.
As per CNBC, nearly all nations fared badly in the two new categories.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe Guardian quoted the report’s lead author Tea Trumbic as saying these two issues especially impacted women’s ability to work.
Trumbic said violence could stop them from going to work, while childcare costs could render it out of the question.
The report said taking care of the childcare gap would immediately boost the number of women in the labour force by 1 per cent.
It said under half the nations have financial support or tax relief for parents of young children.
Under a third have established childcare quality standards to reassure parents that their children will be properly cared for.
The report also for the first time examined how 190 nations are implementing existing laws to protect women.
It uncovered a “shocking” gap between policy and practice.
According to The Guardian, nations had on average set up under 40 per cent of the systems needed to put the policies in place.
‘Women could turbocharge global economy’
The report said putting an end to discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from working or starting businesses could boost global gross domestic product by over 20 per cent.
That would double the rate of global growth over the next decade.
“Women have the power to turbocharge the sputtering global economy,” said World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill.
“All over the world, discriminatory laws and practices prevent women from working or starting businesses on an equal footing with men…WBL 2024 identifies what governments can do to accelerate progress toward gender equality in business and the law," she was quoted as saying by CNBC.
Gill noted that reforms to prevent discrimination have slowed to a crawl.
The report said obstacles that women face in entering the global workforce included barriers to starting businesses, persistent pay gaps and bans on working at night or in jobs deemed “dangerous”.
Women have barely a third of needed legal protections against domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriage and femicide in the 190 countries studied, the report found.
Sexual harassment is banned in the workplace in 151 countries, but only 40 have laws banning it in public places.
“How can we expect women to prosper at work when it is dangerous for them just to travel to work?” Gill asked.
Women also spend an average of 2.4 more hours a day on unpaid care work than men, much of it caring for children, with only 78 countries having enacted quality standards governing childcare services.
On paper, women had roughly two-thirds the rights of men, but countries lacked the systems needed for full implementation and enforcement, the report also found.
For example, 98 economies have equal pay laws, but only 35 have pay-transparency measures or enforcement mechanisms to address the pay gap, which shows women earning just 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.
How did India do?
According to Down To Earth, India improved its rank to 113 this year to 126 in 2023.
Though India has maintained its score of 74.4 per cent since 2021, the country’s ranking has fluctuated since then.
India was ranked 125 in 2022 and 122 in 2021.
The new two factors of safety and childcare improved India’s ranking.
The report found Indian women have 60 per cent of the legal rights compared to men.
While that’s under the global average, India fares far better than its peers in South Asia where women have just 45.9 per cent of the legal protections enjoyed by men.
The country also got a perfect score on freedom of movement and marriage-related constraints.
But the World Bank report gave India one of the lowest scores when it comes to laws about women’s pay.
It recommended that India pass equal pay for equal work laws, allow women to work at night as men do and let women work industrial jobs at par with men.
According to Economic Times, India also fared better with regard to supportive frameworks such as policies, plans, programs, services, budgets, procedures, inspections, and sanctions for noncompliance with quality standards.
India established 54.2 per cent of supportive frameworks compared to the global average of 39.5 per cent.
According to the newspaper, India has been attempting to boost female labour force participation rate – which stood at 37 per cent in 2022-2023.
That figure was over 50 per cent in OECD nations.
‘Supportive frameworks largely lacking’
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have the most laws to protect women but the fewest systems to enforce them.
“We’ve seen a consistent reform effort from several African countries … this year the report really highlights Togo and Sierra Leone that had really big shifts in the last three to four years,” Trumbic was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
“But the supportive frameworks are largely lacking. So that’s why the implementation gap is even larger in countries that reformed recently because they’ve raised the standard in their laws, but they don’t have the supportive mechanisms to implement them.”
According to Down To Earth, Togo has just 27 per cent of the necessary mechanisms in place to fully implement the laws.
The report includes specific recommendations for governments, including improving laws relating to safety, childcare and business opportunities; enacting reforms that lift restrictions on women’s work; expanding maternity and paternity leave provisions; and setting binding quotas for women on corporate boards of publicly traded companies.
Earlier retirement ages for women, despite women living longer than men, also limit their income.
“Because they receive lower pay while they work, take time off when they have children, and retire earlier, they end up with smaller pension benefits and greater financial insecurity in old age,” it said.
“It is more urgent than ever to accelerate efforts to reform laws and enact public policies that empower women to work and start and grow businesses," Trumbic said.
Trumbic added barely half of women participated in the global workforce, compared with nearly three out of every four men.
“This is not just unfair - it’s wasteful. Countries simply cannot afford to sideline half of their population.”
“Increasing women’s economic participation is the key to amplifying their voices and shaping decisions that affect them directly,” Trumbic was quoted as saying by CNBC.
With inputs from agencies
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