World Bank: It'll take 50 years to realise gender parity in the law
The World Bank’s 2023 Women, Business and the Law report also shows that on average, women enjoy only 77 per cent of the legal rights that men do globally.
What you need to know:
- The global pace of reforms towards equal treatment of women under the law, the survey found, slumped in 2022 to a 20-year low.
- Sub-Saharan Africa made significant progress last year in improving legal rights for women, accounting for more than half of all reforms worldwide in 2022.
It will take at least 50 years for women and men to enjoy equal legal rights across the globe, a report suggests.
The World Bank’s 2023 Women, Business and the Law report also shows that on average, women enjoy only 77 per cent of the legal rights that men do globally. The survey also found that nearly 2.4 billion women of working age live in economies that do not grant them the same rights as men.
The global pace of reforms towards equal treatment of women under the law, the survey found, slumped in 2022 to a 20-year low. Sub-Saharan Africa made significant progress last year in improving legal rights for women, accounting for more than half of all reforms worldwide in 2022, with seven economies enacting a total of 18 positive legal changes.
Kenya’s average score of 80.6 per cent remains higher than the regional average observed across Sub-Saharan Africa (72.6) and Eastern and Southern Africa at 74.1 per cent.
When it comes to constraints on freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work, and affecting their pay, and marriage, Kenya gets a perfect score. The 2023 survey assessed laws and regulations on women’s economic participation in 190 economies, from 1970 to 2022.
It covered eight related areas—mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pension. The data offer objective and measurable benchmarks for evaluating global progress towards legal gender equality.
In Kenya, the Women, Business and the Law 2023 Conference to mark the launch of the report was held in Nairobi. The conference, a joint venture between the World Bank and the State Department for Gender, discussed women, business and the law, with a focus on legal reforms and programming for gender equality and women economic empowerment.
In her keynote address, Public Service, Gender and Affirmative Action Cabinet Secretary Aisha Jumwa observed that the use of technology in legal reforms and programming is key to accelerating attainment of gender equality and women empowerment.
Access to justice
She said the government has digitised access to justice by introducing ICT services in the provision of legal services, a major win for women and girls. “The government is committed to providing an enabling environment to facilitate legal reforms and programming to promote the inclusion of women and girls in all spheres of national development,” said Jumwa.
Keith Hance, the World Bank Director to Kenya, said investing in gender equality and women’s empowerment is not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing to do. “By prioritising gender equality in our policies and programmes, we can create a more inclusive and prosperous society for all Kenyans,” he said.
The President’s adviser on Women’s Rights, Harriet Chiggai, said to achieve gender equality and women empowerment, change is required within economic policies, laws and societal attitudes. In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal reforms were recorded across 18 economies, the lowest number since 2001.
The global average score on the Women, Business and the Law index rose for just half a point to 77.1 from 2021 to 2022.Most reforms focused on increasing paid leave for parents and fathers, removing restrictions on women’s work and equal pay.
In East Asia and Pacific, China introduced a parental leave policy, Indonesia enacted legislation protecting women from sexual harassment in employment, and Mongolia mandated equal remuneration for work of equal value and introduced paid paternity leave.
The Middle East and North Africa also passed some significant reforms. Bahrain equalised the ages at which women and men can retire with full pension benefits. Iraq prohibited gender-based discrimination in financial services. Malta introduced paid parental leave for each parent.
Economies in other regions also enacted reforms, with Costa Rica, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Netherlands and Pakistan being among them.
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 towards legal gender equality. Between 2000 and 2009, more than 600 reforms were introduced, with a peak of 73 reforms being in 2002 and 2008.
Reform fatigue
The report, however, notes that 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.
Today, just 14 economies, all high-income, have laws giving women the same rights as men, and progress has been uneven across regions and over time.
They include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. The countries scored 100 on the index, meaning that women are on an equal legal standing with men in all of the areas measured.
Worldwide, every economy has implemented at least one reform since 1970; however, 176 economies still have room to improve.
Nearly 90 million women of working age gained legal equality in the last decade. However, 2.4 billion women of working age do not have the same legal rights as men. More than half of these women live in East Asia and Pacific (710 million) and South Asia (610 million), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (330 million).
Since 2021, 18 economies introduced a total of 34 reforms towards gender equality across all areas measured by Women, Business and the Law, the lowest number since 2001. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than half of all reforms, with seven economies, namely Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda, enacting 18 positive legal changes.
Among these, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon stand out. Côte d’Ivoire enacted reforms prohibiting discrimination in access to credit based on gender, addressing domestic violence, and removing restrictions on women’s employment.
Gabon, on the other hand, came up with reforms equalising the process of obtaining a passport, mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value, and removing all job restrictions for women.
As a result, for the first time in 53 years, two economies from the Sub-Saharan Africa region score above 90 on the Women, Business and the Law index. The average score for sub-Saharan Africa has also surpassed the score of the East Asia and Pacific region. Other countries that reformed this year are Bahrain, China, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Malta, Mongolia, the Netherlands and Pakistan.
