Only 4% of Women Live with Full Legal Equality: World Bank Report

• A report from the World Bank Group indicates that laws regarding women's economic equality are only partially implemented
• Only 4% of women in the world live in economies that have near full legal equality

According to a new report published by the World Bank Group, it has been found that the enforcement of laws aimed at ensuring women have equal economic opportunities is only partially done globally, with only 4 percent of women living in economies where legal equality is close to being fully attained.

The latest Women, Business and the Law report points out that although many countries have laws in place to ensure gender equality, the enforcement of these laws is poor.

On average, laws that support women’s economic empowerment are only 50 percent enforced. Even if these laws are fully enforced, women would still enjoy only two-thirds of the rights that men enjoy.

For the first time, the report examines the quality of laws and their enforcement. Lawyers surveyed for the report have pointed out that although governments have made progress in passing equal opportunity laws, less than half of the policies and services required to support these laws are in place.

Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, highlighted the large gap between laws and enforcement.

He said that although most countries perform decently on the strength of laws (scoring an average of 67 out of 100), their enforcement score is 53, and the strength of the systems required to enforce these laws is only 47.

Indermit said that these gaps mean that a lot of opportunities are being lost and that these findings are very important for policymakers to understand the problem of the loss of growth potential in developing economies.

The report also assesses women’s economic empowerment in 10 areas, such as protection from violence, access to childcare, entrepreneurship, job protection, asset ownership, and retirement security. It points out that safety from violence is a significant obstacle that prevents women from regularly engaging in the labor force.

Norman Loayza, the Director of the World Bank’s Policy Indicators Group, said that “real equality begins with safety, at home, at work, and in public.” He also said that “overall, we are failing, and only one-third of the safety laws are in place, and even these are not enforced, with an 80 percent failure rate in enforcement.”