The pace of reforms to reduce gender inequality has slowed sharply in 2022 to its lowest level in 20 years, according to a World Bank report (AFP/Archives/Jason Connolly)
The pace of reforms aimed at reducing gender inequality has slowed sharply in 2022 to its lowest level in 20 years, according to a World Bank (WB) report published on Thursday.
The index measuring the progress of reforms in favor of greater legal equality has only increased by 0.5 points and stands at 77.1 points, “this means that women on average only enjoy barely 77% of the legal rights recognized for men”, writes the institution, in its report “Women, business and the law” for 2022.
In concrete terms, 34 reforms were carried out over the past year, in 18 countries, which makes it the lowest total since the beginning of the century.
At the current pace of reform, a young woman entering working life today will not achieve legal equality when she retires in most countries, says the report, which points to a risk of hampering “economic growth at a critical time for the global economy”.
“The fact that a large part of the world does not grant women the same rights as men constitutes not only an injustice with regard to them but also an obstacle in the capacity of these countries to promote a development green, resilient and inclusive,” WB chief economist Indermit Gill said in a statement.
The institution estimates that legal equality would make it possible to increase gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the long term by almost 20% on average, with global economic gains estimated at between 5,000 and 6,000 billion dollars if the women could start and grow new businesses as easily as men.
While the level of equality is highest in the advanced economies, sub-Saharan Africa is the region to have carried out the most reforms in this area by 2022, with half of the total being carried out in seven countries in the area.
As part of its report, the World Bank studied all the laws and regulations passed or put in place in 190 countries in 2022, taking into account eight areas that “influence women’s participation in economic life”: mobility , work, earnings, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and retirement.
© 2023 AFP
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