Women, Business and the Law:

Sarah Iqbal

Program Manager

Global Indicators Group, Development Economics

WHAT IS WOMEN, BUSINESS AND THE LAW?

• Research on the business environment has helped us to better

understand the obstacles that entrepreneurs and employees face in

general when it comes to starting businesses and getting jobs.

But what about obstacles that are specific to women?

• The Women, Business and the Law project examines laws and

regulations differentiating between men and women in ways that may

affect women’s opportunities and incentives to work. It pioneers the

measurement of the gender gap in policy variables using quantitative

and objective data.

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WOMEN, BUSINESS AND THE LAW INDICATORS

Accessing institutions Explores women’s legal ability to interact with public authorities and

the private sector in the same ways as men.

Using property Analyzes women’s ability to own, manage, control and inherit

property.

Getting a job Assesses restrictions on women’s work, such as prohibitions on

working at night or in certain industries.

Providing incentives to

work

Examines personal income tax liabilities, taking into account tax

credits and deductions available to women relative to men.

Building credit Identifies minimum loans tracked by private credit bureaus and

public credit registries and assesses bureaus and registries that

collect information from microfinance institutions.

Going to court Examines access to small claims courts and data on whether

women’s testimony in court is given the same evidentiary weight as

that of men.

Protecting women from

violence (pilot indicator)

Examines laws on domestic violence and the existence and

scope of laws on sexual harassment.

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WOMEN STILL FACE CHALLENGES ACROSS ALL

INDICATORS

Almost 90% of the 143 economies covered by Women, Business and the Law 2014 have at least one legal difference restricting women’s economic opportunities.

Among the 28 economies that have 10 and more restrictions, 25 are in the Middle East and North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

15

42

30

28

28

No restrictions

3 ≤ restrictions < 5

≤ 5 restrictions < 10

≥ 10 restrictions

0 < restrictions < 3

Source: Women, Business and the Law database3

MARRIED WOMEN LEGALLY CANNOT TAKE ACTIONS IN THE

SAME WAY AS MARRIED MEN IN SOME ECONOMIES

Footer Info4

MARITAL AUTHORIZATION LETTER

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WOMEN’S LEGAL RIGHTS OVER 50 YEARS

• More than half of the restrictions in place in 1960 had been removed by 2010.

• Restrictions in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and East Asia and the Pacific

were reduced by more than half, and in OECD high income economies and Eastern Europe and

Central Asia they were eliminated entirely.

• The least reforms occurred in the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia.

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GENDER-BASED LEGAL RESTRICTIONS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH

LOWER FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN THE OWNERSHIP OF FIRMS

Source: Women, Business and the Law database, Enterprise Surveys database, World Development Indicators database 7

ECONOMIES WITH MORE RESTRICTIONS ALSO TEND TO

PROVIDE FEWER INCENTIVES

Source: Women, Business and the Law database 8

ECONOMIES THAT PROVIDE MORE INCENTIVES FOR

WOMEN TO WORK HAVE GREATER INCOME EQUALITY

Source: Women, Business and the Law database, World Development Indicators database, All the Ginis dataset 9

CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITION OF CUSTOMARY

LAW IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Low_Income Middle_Income

Constitutional recognition of customary law (SSA)

Not recognize CustomaryLaw

Recognize Customary Law- and EXEMPT it from non-discriminate based ongender

Recognize Customary Law- and limit its ability todiscriminate based ongender

Women’s Legal and Economic Empowerment Database (Women LEED Africa), Hallward-Driemeier et al. World Bank 2013.

Countries that

recognize customary

law as prevailing in

areas of marriage,

property and

inheritance – and

exempt customary law

from non-discrimination

provisions include:

• Botswana

• Lesotho

• The Gambia

• Ghana

• Mauritius

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

Kenya came off the list

with its 2010

constitution.

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PLURAL LEGAL SYSTEMS

• Approximately 50% of constitutions in SSA formally

recognize customary law and 33% recognize religious law

• A third of these constitutions specifically exempt customary

law from principles of non-discrimination in family and

inheritance laws

• Over 80% of land in Zambia is customary land that falls

outside scope of statutory inheritance laws

• Customary marriages generally do not benefit from

beneficial statutory laws

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CASE LAW—POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE

APHANE DOO (2010) Swaziland

• Married women married in community of property can register joint

property in their name

• Discriminatory statute was unconstitutional

MOJEKWU (2004) Nigeria• Customary law favoring male heirs was upheld

• Customary law could not be rejected just because it did not recognize a role for

women

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HOW DOES REFORM HAPPEN?

Collective campaigns by women’s networks

• e.g. Kenya, Ethiopia

• Shadow reports to CEDAW committee

Impact Litigation

• e.g. Unity Dow (1995) and Mmusi (2012) in Botswana

Membership of regional treaties

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CEDAW HELPED CATALYZE REFORMS

Rates of reform doubled within 5 years of ratifying CEDAW

Source: Hallward-Driemeier, Hasan and Rusu, 201314

WOMEN LEGISLATORS RAISE

THE PROBABILITY OF REFORMS

Source: Hallward-Driemeier, Hasan and Rusu, 201315

HOW DOES GREATER LEGAL EQUALITY TRANSLATE INTO

WOMEN’S ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION

Recent research shows a strong positive relationship between having legislation on nondiscrimination in hiring on the basis of gender and women’s employment relative to men’s

Reform of inheritance laws in India led to greater investment in girl’s education, higher rates of female bank account ownership, and a greater likelihood of having sanitary latrines in the home

Reform of family laws in Ethiopia in 2000 increased female labor force participation and resulted in women working in more productive sectors

Work

Property

Agency

Sources: Hallward-Driemeier and Gajigo. 2010. Deininger, Xia, Jin, Nagarajan, 2014. Amin and Islam, 2015.1616

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