Resource information
In the past 50 years women's legal
status has improved all over the world. But many laws still
make it difficult for women to fully participate in economic
life whether by getting jobs or starting businesses.
Discriminatory rules bar women from certain jobs, restrict
access to capital for women-owned firms and limit
women's capacity to make legal decisions. Gender
differences in laws affect both developing and developed
economies, and women in all regions. Women, business, and
the law measures restrictions on women s employment and
entrepreneurship as well as incentives for women s
employment in 143 economies. Women, business, and the law
and the World Bank's global financial inclusion global
findings database show that in economies with a default full
community of property regime, there are on average 10
percentage points more female owned accounts at formal
financial institutions than in economies with a default
separation of property regime. This report has shown that
although much progress has been made in recent decades in
gradually dismantling many of the legal restrictions which
have hampered women from more fully contributing to national
prosperity, there is a large unfinished agenda of reform.
Gender equality is important not only for fairness and
equity, but also for economic efficiency and is at the
center of creating a more prosperous world.
