On Women’s Equality Day… Do Women Have the Same Rights as Men?
Did you know that today women have just three-quarters of the legal rights of men on average? In 1970, it was less than half.
With a score of 67.9 out of 100, the EU is at least 60 years away from reaching complete gender equality.
EIGE’s Gender Equality Index shows that advances in gender equality are still moving at a snail’s pace, with an average improvement of just half a point each year.
Women, Business and the Law (WBL) 2020 are one in a series of studies of the World Bank that tracks how the law affects women at various stages in their lives. Analysis of 1,518 reforms across 50 years and 190 economies yields some interesting insights.
First of all, significant progress has been made around the world. However, the pace of reform has varied across regions.
The high-income OECD and Sub-Saharan Africa regions have noted the most significant progress in terms of volume of reforms and improvement in their average WBL index scores.
The second interesting finding is that progress has been uneven across the eight different areas of the law measured by WBL. The indicators are Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.
In the last five decades, the most reform happened in the Workplace indicator. With 322 reforms, the index improved the average from 17.6 to 78.4. These reforms focused on introducing legislation on protections against sexual harassment and preventing discrimination in employment. The reform effort intensified in the mid-1990s.
While there were significant gains in all areas, Pay and Parenthood indicators have the largest gaps to close.
The third interesting discovery is the countries that recorded the most considerable improvement in their WBL index score from 1970 to 2019. Belgium and Luxembourg have achieved gender equality in all of the areas measured.
Today, only eight economies worldwide receive a score of 100: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
The average Women, Business and the Law index score in 2019 is 75.2, indicating that women have approximately three-quarters of men’s rights in the areas covered by the index.
This score represents a significant improvement in the five decades covered by the data. For example, in 1970, the global average Women, Business and the Law index score were 46.5. Altogether, every economy measured has made at least one regulatory change each year since 1970, for a total of 1,517 reforms over 50 years.
Despite the progress that has been made, more work remains to be done. We are hoping that it takes less than 60 years to achieve it.
According to research from Nobel Prize winner 2020 Esther Duflo, the first female economist to win this award in economics, women’s empowerment and economic development are closely interrelated.
While development itself will bring about women’s empowerment, empowering women will bring about changes in decision-making, which will directly impact development.
This blog contribution was made by Eleonora Papini.
Eleonora is a native Italian living in Greece, passionate about human psychology, sustainable development and international cooperation.
Eleonora is a multilingual Data & Communication consultant, 1+ years of international experience in the European Union Government sector.
In 2021, she became a Data Analyst for the LMF Network and content creator for their blog.
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Sources
- https://nationalmentoringday.org/facts-and-faq/
- https://www.guider-ai.com/blog/mentoring-statistics-the-research-you-need-to-know
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2019/07/03/new-study-76-of-people-think-mentors-are-important-but-only-37-have-one/?sh=663b32ae4329
- https://mccarthymentoring.com/why-mentoring-what-the-stats-say/
- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/four-key-benefits-of-work_b_9432716?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVuZXh0d2ViLmNvbS9jb250cmlidXRvcnMvMjAxNy8wOS8wNy9tZW50b3JpbmctcHJvZ3JhbXMtcmlzZS1oZXJlcy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC94rnlEtqsAsGOJNZbL3FWwKDL80R3EbDl5T_HEw4RlK1jn7w3i3JdG2toz4fQl1WBZAd4eVCuJ1S9y8s8_rxCAFX7w7laXXZGxI3GLmYHts7bxDlIhoZUwI9OSBpcwHfPZaxv5GKhQp6mkX5eGSoQELVp_1tHl7bRx5sgJPjiI
