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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.