Gender equality is when women and men enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of society, including economic participation and decision-making, and when the different behaviours, aspirations and needs of women and men are equally valued and favoured.

The World bank’s Women, business and the law 2019 report, published recently, measured gender discrimination in 187 countries and found only six countries in the world give women and men equal legal work rights.

Gender Equality implies equal enjoyment of rights & opportunities by human beings (be it male or female) in all spheres be it social, economic or political. Women are half of the world’s population and they have their role to play in creating a more prosperous world.

Findings of the Report:

• The index explores how the economic decisions women make are affected by the law.
• The data show there has been great progress towards legal gender equality over the past decade.
• In 131 economies there have been 274 reforms to laws and regulations, leading to an increase in gender equality.
• This includes the 35 economies that implemented laws on workplace sexual harassment, protecting nearly two billion more women than a decade ago.
• The average global score is 74.71, indicating that a typical economy gives women only three-fourths the legal rights of men in the measured areas.
• However, the average score in the Middle East and North Africa is 47.37, meaning the typical economy in that region gives women less than half the legal rights of men in the measured areas.
• Many laws and regulations continue to prevent women from entering the workforce or starting a business.
• Discrimination that can have lasting effects on women’s economic inclusion and labour force participation.
• Economies that failed to implement reforms towards gender equality over the past ten years, for example, saw a smaller increase in the percentage of women working overall and in the percentage of women working relative to men.

Indian Scenario:

• India has a score of 71.25 among the 187 countries.
• Advocacy has also proved critical in India, including in the Supreme Court case of Vishakha v State of Rajasthan where women’s groups filed public interest litigation to enforce the rights of women in the workplace under the Indian constitution.
• India was one of the economies which introduced a legislation – Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act to protect women.
• The recent Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 also has helped women to work better during maternity as well as take care of child.
• However, in India, the women labour force participation rate is about 25% and most of them are in the unorganized sector where the above legislations don’t apply.
• The lack of decision making and no ownership of economic resources hinder women from economic growth.
• The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2018 ranked India at 142 out of 149 countries on the economic participation and opportunity gap.
• According to Global Wage Report 2018-19 published by ILO, on an average, women are paid 34% less than men in India. Inequality is higher in monthly wages, with a gap of 22%.
• Rather than business regulations, it is often discriminatory provisions in family codes, labour codes, constitutions, property laws, and domestic violence laws that suppress women’s labour force participation.

Gender equality leads to economic growth

• Six economies—Belgium,  Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden—score 100 in the Women, Business and the Law index, meaning they give women and men  equal  legal  rights  in  the  measured 
• France had  the  biggest  improvement  among  the  top  performers,  going  from  a  score  of  88  in  the  index ten years ago to 100 now by implementing a domestic violence law, providing criminal penalties for workplace sexual harassment and introducing paid parental leave.

Conclusion:

Economies grow faster when more women work. If governments want to capitalise on this kind of growth, they must not only remove these impediments but also incentivise women’s entry into the workforce. The law influences what happens on the ground. In countries with higher scores, there are more women employees and entrepreneurs, showing us that when societies get to equal, economies become more resilient. There is a need to recognise women’s unique role as drivers of progress and powerful agents of change.