WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 167-Page World
Bank - IFC Report:
Women, Business and the Law 2012
Removing Barriers to Economic Inclusion
Authors: World
Bank - IFC
Published:
Sept 26, 2011
Women, Business and the Law 2012: Removing Barriers to Economic
Inclusion finds that while 36 economies reduced legal differences between
men and women, 103 out of 141 economies studied still impose legal differences
on the basis of gender in at least one of the report’s key indicators. The
report also identifies 41 law and regulatory reforms enacted between June 2009
and March 2011 that could enhance women’s economic opportunities.
Globally, women represent 49.6 percent of the population but
only 40.8 percent of the workforce in the formal sector. Legal differences
between men and women may explain this gap. The report shows that economies
with greater legal differentiation between men and women have, on average,
lower female participation in the formal labor force.
The report measures such things as a woman’s ability to sign a
contract, travel abroad, manage property, and interact with public authorities
and the private sector. In all economies, married women face more legal
differentiations than unmarried women. In 23 economies, married women cannot
legally choose where to live, and in 29 they cannot be legally recognized as
head of household.
Every region includes economies with unequal rules for men and
women, although the extent of the inequality varies widely. On average,
high-income economies have fewer differences than middle- and low-income
economies. The Middle East and North Africa have the most legal differences
between men and women, followed by South Asia and
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