”If women had equal opportunities to reach their full potential, the world had not only been fairer, but it would be more successful”, writes Kristalina Georgieva, director of the world Bank.
the barriers that women face in the workplace, including the extent to which women and men have access to the labour market and the degree to which women can control their financial assets. The result shows that the women in the world only has just over 75 per cent of men’s economic rights and opportunities.
the Study ”Women, Business and the Law In 2019: A Decade of Reform”, has gathered data over a ten-year period from 187 countries and it shows that progress has been made. Among the other 35 countries that have introduced laws against sexual harassment in the workplace and 22 countries have removed restrictions which prevent women in the workplace. But there are still plenty of laws in the world which prevents women from entering the labour market.
“We have looked at the different choices that women must make in their lives and how the laws and restrictions make it more difficult for women precisely because they are women,” says Rita Ramalho, manager of the world bank’s data collection and one of the co-authors of the report to the TT.
Sweden is one of six countries that receive full points on the world bank’s jämställdhetsskala, which no country had ten years ago.
– It does not mean that there is room for improvement. There are still large pay gaps remain, says Rita Ramalho.
showed the results on the improvements while the Middle east and north Africa falls far behind in the jämställdhetsskalan. Where women have an average of 47 per cent of men’s economic rights and opportunities, which makes those countries the most unequal in the world.
Rita Ramalho believes that more gender equality leads to economic prosperity.
” We need to enlighten and make people more aware that the country is losing money by not providing equal rights to women. In addition to providing equal rights to women have also an economic value, it increases among the other countries ‘GDP,” she says.
the Study has eight main criteria that they look for what applies to women’s career opportunities: freedom of Movement, start a business, get paid/salary, marriage, children, running a business, managing assets and pension.
”Child”, for example, contains laws about motherhood and fatherhood and parental leave, which affects women’s economic decision making when planning to start a family.
that got 90 points or more, are 26 high-income countries within the OECD, eight are from Europe and central asia, two from Latin america (Paraguay and Peru) and the other three are from east Asia and the Pacific (Taiwan, China).
at the bottom of the list ended up in saudi Arabia, followed by the United arab emirates, Sudan, Iran, Qatar and Syria.