Women still face disparities despite equal-opportunity legislation – World Bank

Even in prosperous nations, women worldwide continue to confront considerable discrepancies in access to essential services and legal protections, according to the World Bank, despite gains in equal-opportunity legislation.

This was mentioned in the most recent World Bank report, "Women, Business, and the Law," which found that no nation in the world—not even the richest ones—offers equal opportunities for women.

The paper claims that this demonstrates how much larger than previously believed the gender gap is for women worldwide in the workplace.

It said that women's rights are less than two-thirds of men's when one considers the legal distinctions around childcare and assault.

The World Bank claimed that none of the eight economies in South Asia, which includes Sri Lanka, have scored above the legal index global average of 64.2.
The excerpt stated that Sri Lanka received a score of 41.3 on the opinion of experts regarding the status of women's rights, 30.0 for supportive frameworks, and 45.0 for legal frameworks. Despite permitting women to serve as "heads of households," none of the eight nations have attained legal gender parity.

With a score of 0 in this area, Sri Lanka, in particular, lacks access to reasonably priced and high-quality childcare. Merely 64% of the legal safeguards that are accessible to men are not available to women.

Only 35 economies have properly addressed the pay gap despite 98 having passed laws pertaining to equal pay. Accordingly, less than 40% of countries have implemented procedures that enable women to exercise around two-thirds of the rights of men.”
Notably, the average global score for women's safety was 36, meaning that women only receive around one-third of the necessary legal protections against harassment and assault.

The WB also noted that only 39 nations have legislation against workplace sexual harassment in public places, despite the fact that 151 countries have laws against it.

In addition, it said that only 78 countries offer some form of financial or tax support to parents of small children, and that women perform 2.4 hours more unpaid care work per day on average than males.

According to the survey, women's entrepreneurial chances are limited and there are only 62 economies with excellent criteria for childcare services, which affects women's engagement in the labour.

It stated that it is unfair to exclude women from a US$10 trillion annual economic potential when just one in five economies require gender-sensitive standards for public procurement.

According to the report, women only make 77 cents for every dollar made by males. It also said that, for the first time, Women, Business and the Law evaluates the discrepancy between the goals set forth by legal reforms and the real results that women achieve across 190 economies.

Women have the ability to significantly boost the faltering global economy, according to Indermit Gill, Senior Vice President for Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. But discriminatory laws and practices prohibit women from entering the workforce or establishing enterprises on an equal basis with men everywhere in the world.

"Closing this disparity" could raise global Gross Domestic Product by more than 20 per cent essentially doubling the global growth rate over the next decade but reforms have slowed to a crawl.”