The Women, Business and the Law team will not publish a report in 2025. The team is working to enhance its strategic direction and ensure the quality, scope, and impact of the Women, Business and the Law reports in the long term. The next data update and report is expected to be published in March 2026.
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Highlights
PRESS RELEASE: New Data Show Massive, Wider-than-Expected Global Gender Gap
For the first time, Women, Business and the Law analyzes not only the pace of legal reforms to create equal economic opportunities for women, but also countries’ efforts to implement those laws.
Representation Matters 2025 Report
This report highlights the impact of women’s political representation on economic growth. Countries with more women in political office pass more laws enhancing women’s economic rights (as measured by the Women, Business and the Law index), boosting female labor force participation and economic growth.
IMF and WBG Annual Meetings: Data on the Global State of Legal Gender ...
During the 2024 IMF and World Bank Group Annual Meetings, WBL team members, Natália Mazoni, Nayantara Vohra, and Alexis Cheney, demonstrated how policymakers, civil society representatives and researchers may use Women, Business and the Law data to close global gender gaps and drive economic development.
WATCH the WBL 2024 Launch Event
Watch the replay of our launch event for the Women, Business and the Law 2024 report and data. Key actors from multilateral organizations as well as from the public, private, and non-profit sectors will draw on the report’s findings and discuss ways to advance women's economic empowerment with legal, policy, and institutional reform.
When Women Win, the World Wins
Globally, women’s legal rights have improved markedly since 1970, as major reforms have dismantled a wide array of barriers that women face at all stages of their working lives. However, a massive global gender gap remains, and progress in many critical areas appears to have been overestimated.
It’s time to mobilize the economic power of women
Closing the gender gap in employment could increase long-term GDP per capita by about 20% globally. In their op-ed, Anna Bjerde & Indermit Gill reaffirm that the business case for gender equality in the workplace has never been stronger.
Filling the Gaps: Childcare Laws for Women's Economic Empowerment
This paper aims to provide global evidence on whether and what attributes of laws governing the provision of childcare services affect women's labor market outcomes.
Research
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Alena Sakhonchik, Gabriela Lucia Marzonetto & Luiza Ferraz Di Ricco Feb 25, 2025
Toward Availability, Public Finance, and Quality of Childcare Services in Latin America and the Caribbean
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Alexis Koumjian Cheney, Daniela Monika Behr Feb 12, 2025
Sierra Leone’s Reform Journey to Advancing Female Entrepreneurship and Financial Inclusion
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Daniela M. Behr, Caroline Perrin, Marie Hyland & Tea Trumbic Jun 03, 2024
Working Paper: Empowering Change: Assessing the Role of Democracy, Civil Society, and Women’s Rights Groups in Advancing Legal Gender Equality
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Lolita Laperle-Forget & Alev Gürbüz Cuneo Mar 26, 2024
Brief: Women, International Trade, and the Law: Breaking Barriers for Gender Equality in Export-Related Activities
New Areas
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Measuring the Legal Environment in Practice
Women, Business and the Law 2.0 extends the measurement of the legal environment in practice to 190 economies, examining the existence of frameworks that support the implementation of the law and gauging experts’ opinions on the outcome of the law for women.
Toward Available, Affordable, and Quality Childcare Services
Women, Business and the Law 2.0 has expanded its data on the availability, affordability, and quality of childcare services to 190 economies and is presenting a stand-alone indicator on childcare.
Women's Safety
Women, Business and the Law’s new Safety indicator measures laws and policy instruments addressing four pervasive forms of violence against women: child marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and femicide.
Women with Disabilities
WBL is collecting and analyzing data on the rights of women with disabilities under family law, labor law, and violence against women legislation.
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Workplace
Analyzing laws affecting women’s decisions to enter and remain in the labor force.
Additional Information
Experts
Norman Loayza
Director, Global Indicators Group
Tea Trumbic
Manager, Women, Business and the Law, Global Indicators Group
