1. Women, Business and the LawWomen, Business and the Law 2014Removing Restrictions to Enhance Gender EqualityKey Findings

2. First published in Great Britain 2013 Copyright International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2013 1818 H Street NW Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000 Internet: www.worldbank.org Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury Publishing London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney This work is a product of the sta of The World Bank with e ternal contributions. The ndings, interpretations, and conclusions e pressed in this work do not necessarily re ect the views of The World Bank, its Board of ecutive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. Any queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to Claire Weatherhead, Permissions Department, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP; e-mail: Claire.weatherhead@bloomsbury.com. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organisation acting or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Publishing or the authors. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 9-781-4729-0643-4 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 3. Key Findings In the past 50 years womens legal status has improved all over the world. But many laws still make it di cult for women to fully participate in economic life whether by getting jobs or starting businesses. Discriminatory rules bar women from certain jobs, restrict access to capital for women-owned rms and limit womens capacity to make legal decisions. Gender di erences in laws a ect both developing and developed economies, and women in all regions.Highlights from Women, Business and the Law 2014 Almost 90 of the 143 economies covered by Women, Business and the Law 2014 have at least one legal difference restricting womens economic opportunities. Twenty-eight economies have 10 or more legal differences for men and women in the areas covered by Women, Business and the Law. Among these, 25 are in the iddle ast and North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The 50 Years of Womens Legal Rights database has made it possible to take two Women, Business and the Law indicators Accessing institutions and sing property backward in time for 100 economies for 50 years. The results are striking: more than half of the restrictions in these two indicators in place in 1960 had been removed by 2010. ver the past 50 years, economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean have reformed the most in Accessing Institutions and sing property. ver the past two years the most reforms have occurred in C te dIvoire, ali, the Philippines and the Slovak Republic for the si indicators measured by Women, Business and the Law. But many restrictions remain. In 15 economies husbands can object to their wives working and prevent them from accepting jobs. In 79 economies laws restrict the types of jobs that women can do. The most e tensive restrictions on womens employment are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. And some bene ts, when taken to a certain threshold, can undermine womens labor force participation. For e ample, in economies where the cumulative duration of paid maternity and parental leave available for mothers e ceeds two years female labor force participation is lower. Policies encouraging women to join and remain in the labor force are associated with less income inequality.8Women are more likely to have accounts at formal nancial institutions in economies with a default full community of property or partial community of property marital regime than in economies with a default separation of property marital regime. New data e plore legal quotas on the share of women on corporate boards, in parliaments and local governments, and serving as judges on constitutional courts. The data nd that 6 economies have quotas for women on boards of publicly listed companies and 12 have legal quotas for women in parliaments. Among the 123 economies covered by Women, Business and the Law that have constitutional courts or court-like bodies, women are represented on all but 19. f the economies measured, 76 have established e plicit legislation addressing domestic violence but only 32 have speci c provisions on se ual harassment in schools. Even less prevalent is legislation on se ual harassment in public spaces only 8 of the 100 economies e amined have enacted such laws.How ommon are gender di eren es in laws? Women, Business and the Law measures restrictions on womens employment and entrepreneurship as well as incentives for womens employment in 143 economies. The dataset captures 21 legal di erences for unmarried women and 26 for married women that a ect womens economic opportunities, for a total of 47 di erences across ve indicators bo 2.1 . f the 143 economies covered by Women, Business and the Law, 128 have at least one di erence between women and men according to this simple measure gure 2.1 . The 28 economies with 10 or more legal di erences are in the iddle East and North Africa 14 economies , Sub-Saharan Africa 11 , East Asia and the Paci c 2 and South Asia 1 . The 15 economies with no legal di erences between women and men in the areas measured are Armenia, Canada, theWomen, Business and the Law 2014 4. Dominican Republic, Estonia, Hungary, osovo, e ico, Namibia, the Netherlands, New ealand, Peru, Puerto Rico .S. , the Slovak Republic, South Africa and Spain.FIGURE 2.1NUMBERS OF GENDER LEGAL DIFFERENCES VARY BY ECONOMYSome methodological considerationsf all the questions covered by Women, Business and the Law, only 47 are included in this measure. Twenty-two questions are included because they contain e plicit gender-based di erences. Three questions pertain to constitutional rights: the absence of a nondiscrimination clause in the constitution with gender as a protected category, the validity of customary law even if it is contrary to constitutional nondiscrimination and equality, and the validity of personal law even if itBOX 2.142 28 30 Number of legal restrictions 0 0