Women spend an average of 2.4 hours more per day doing unpaid care work than men (representative)
The World Bank said on Monday that ending discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from working or starting businesses could boost global gross domestic product by more than 20%, which would double global growth over the next decade.
The bank’s 10th annual Women, Business and the Law report shows that women on average have only 64% of the legal protections of men, down from 77% as previously estimated, and that no country, not even the richest, offers real of equal opportunity.
The lower figures reflect significant shortcomings exposed by the inclusion of two new indicators, safety and childcare, in addition to wages, marriage, fertility, workplace, mobility, assets, entrepreneurship and pensions.
The report is the first to assess how 190 countries implement existing laws to protect women, finding “alarming” gaps between policy and practice.
“Women have the power to power the flagging global economy,” said Indermeet Gill, chief economist at the World Bank, noting that reforms to prevent discrimination have slowed.
Barriers that women face when entering the global labor market include barriers to entrepreneurship, persistent pay gaps and prohibitions on working at night or in jobs deemed “hazardous,” the report said.
The report found that of the 190 countries studied, women received only one-third of the legal protections they need against domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriage and femicide.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is prohibited in 151 countries, but only 40 have laws prohibiting sexual harassment in public places. “How can we expect women to succeed at work when it’s dangerous for them to go to work?” Gill said.
Women spend an average of 2.4 hours more per day in unpaid care work than men, much of it caring for children, and only 78 countries have quality standards governing childcare services.
The report also found that in theory, women have about two-thirds of the rights of men, but countries lack the systems needed to fully implement and enforce them.
For example, 98 economies have equal pay laws, but only 35 have pay transparency measures or enforcement mechanisms in place to address the pay gap, which shows that women earn just 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.
The report includes specific recommendations to the government, including improving laws on safety, childcare and business opportunities; implementing reforms to remove restrictions on women’s work; expanding maternity and paternity leave provisions; and setting standards for women on listed company boards. Binding quotas.
Although women live longer than men, women’s early retirement ages also limit their earnings.
“Because they work for lower wages, take time off to have children, and retire earlier, they end up with smaller pension benefits and greater financial insecurity in old age,” the report said.
Tia Trubik, the report’s lead author, said only half of women in the global workforce are involved, compared with nearly three-quarters of men.
“This is not only unfair, it’s wasteful. Countries simply cannot afford to leave half their population aside.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
