Report by Halimah Olamide
A new World Bank report said that denying women equal rights is not just not just unfair to women but also a barrier to countries’ ability to promote green, resilient, and inclusive development.
This was contained in a report issued by the World Bank on Thursday, stating that the global pace of reforms toward equal treatment of women under the law has slumped to a 20-year low.
It further showed that the drop constitutes a potential impediment to economic growth at a critical time for the global economy.
According to the report, 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 per cent.
“This indicates that women on average, enjoy barely 77 per cent of the legal rights that men do.
“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 statement quoted Indermit Gill, the Chief Economist, World Bank Group and Senior Vice-President for Development Economics, as saying:
“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.
Gill said governments could not afford to sideline as much as half of their population.
The statement also said Women, Business and the Law 2023 assesses 190 countries’ laws and regulations in eight areas related to women’s economic participation.
It said the eight areas were mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pensions.
According to the statement, the data which are current through Oct. 1, 2022, offer 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.”
It said worldwide, nearly 2.4 billion women of working age still do not have the same rights as men.
The statement said closing the gender employment gap could raise long-term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita by nearly 20 per cent on average across countries.
It said studies estimate global economic gains of five to six trillion dollars if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men do.
The statement said 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 said it would take at least 50 years on average to reach that target.”
The statement said the latest Women, Business and the Law report provides a comprehensive assessment of global progress toward gender equality in the law over the past 50 years.
“Since 1970, the global average Women, Business and the Law score has improved by about two-thirds rising from 45.8 to 77.1 points.
“The first decade of this century saw strong gains toward legal gender equality. Between 2,000 and 2,009, more than 600 reforms were introduced, with a peak of 73 annual reforms in 2,002 and 2,008.
“Since then, reform fatigue seems to have set in, particularly in areas that involve long-established norms, such as the rights of women to inherit and own property.
The statement said analysis of the data showed that economies with historically larger legal gender gaps have been catching up, especially since 2,000.
It said currently, equality of economic opportunity for women is highest in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) high-income economies but important reforms have continued in developing economies.
The statement, however, said Sub-Saharan Africa made significant progress in 2022.
“The region accounted for more than half of all reforms worldwide in 2022, with seven economies: Benin, the Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Malawi, Senegal, and Uganda, all enacting 18 positive legal changes.”
It said although great achievements had been made over the last five decades, more needed to be done worldwide.
“This is 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.”