A new report from the World Bank Group reveals that laws designed to ensure equal economic opportunities for women are enforced only about half the time globally, highlighting significant barriers to women’s full participation in the economy. Even where laws exist, women on average enjoy only two-thirds of the legal rights of men. The report, Women, Business and the Law, is the first to assess both the adequacy of laws on the books and the degree to which they are implemented, showing that legal protections alone are insufficient without effective enforcement mechanisms.
Legal experts surveyed for the report estimate that laws supporting women’s economic participation are enforced at only 50 percent, while fewer than half of the policies and institutions needed to implement these laws are in place. Only 4 percent of women live in economies that provide nearly full legal equality. According to Indermit Gill, Chief Economist at the World Bank Group, while countries score on average 67 out of 100 for legal adequacy, enforcement drops that score to 53, and implementation systems bring it down further to 47, revealing large gaps in opportunity and economic potential.
The report evaluates women’s economic participation across ten key areas, including safety from violence, access to childcare, entrepreneurship, employment protections, asset ownership, and retirement security. Safety from violence emerges as a critical shortcoming, with only a third of needed laws in place and enforcement failing 80 percent of the time, leaving women vulnerable and limiting their ability to work consistently. Norman Loayza, Director of the World Bank’s Policy Indicators Group, emphasizes that safety is foundational to achieving true economic equality.
Entrepreneurship is another area where women face obstacles. While women can legally start businesses on equal terms in nearly all economies, only about half of the countries promote equal access to credit, restricting women entrepreneurs’ ability to secure financing. Childcare is similarly under-supported, with less than half of the 190 economies providing financial or tax support for families, and only 30 percent of policies needed to ensure affordable, high-quality childcare are in place. In low-income economies, just 1 percent of the necessary childcare mechanisms exist, limiting mothers’ ability to work or pursue higher-productivity jobs.
Despite these gaps, progress is being made. Over the past two years, 68 economies enacted 113 positive legal reforms across multiple areas of women’s economic life, with the most significant improvements in entrepreneurship and safety from violence. Seven countries expanded paternity leave to help redistribute caregiving responsibilities. Sub-Saharan Africa led regional reforms, implementing 33 changes, including lifting prohibitions on women working in sectors like construction, manufacturing, and agriculture in countries such as Madagascar and Somalia. Egypt, Jordan, and Oman also made notable advances, with Egypt increasing its legal equality score by nearly 10 points, extending paid parental leave, mandating equal pay, and allowing requests for flexible work arrangements.
The report underscores that ensuring equal economic opportunity for women is not only a matter of fairness but a critical driver of growth. Tea Trumbic, Manager of the Women, Business and the Law project, notes that with 1.2 billion young people—half of them girls—entering the workforce over the next decade, addressing these barriers is essential to unlocking GDP growth, creating better jobs, and enabling inclusive economic development worldwide.
