Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) Report

A recent report by the World Bank Group highlights that laws designed to ensure equal economic opportunities for women are only half-enforced globally, exposing deep structural barriers that continue to limit women’s contribution to economic growth and prosperity.

Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) Report

¨     The WBL is a global benchmarking project of the World Bank that assesses women’s economic rights worldwide.

¨     It evaluates how laws, regulations, and policies affect women’s economic participation across 190 economies.

¨     For the first time, the latest edition examines not only legal equality but also enforcement and the availability of implementation systems.

¨     The report covers 10 domains such as safety from violence, employment protections, entrepreneurship, childcare access, asset ownership, and retirement security.

¨     It aims to help countries identify reforms that unlock women’s economic potential and promote inclusive growth and job creation.

Key Findings of the Report

¨     Major Gap Between Laws and Enforcement: Globally, laws promoting women’s economic participation are only about 50% enforced, revealing a large gap between legal provisions and actual outcomes. Even with full enforcement, women would still have barely two-thirds of men’s legal rights, and only 4% of women live in near-equal legal systems (67 legal score vs 53 enforcement vs 47 implementation).

¨     Weak Implementation Ecosystems: Most economies lack even half of the institutional systems required to implement gender laws effectively. Weak enforcement mechanisms and institutions prevent legal reforms from translating into real economic empowerment, slowing growth and job creation.

¨     Safety from Violence – A Critical Barrier: Safety gaps remain one of the biggest barriers, with only one-third of required legal protections in place globally. Even where laws exist, enforcement fails nearly 80% of the time, restricting women’s mobility and workforce participation.

¨     Entrepreneurship Challenges: While women can legally start businesses in most countries, equal access to credit exists in only about half of economies. Persistent financing constraints continue to limit the scale and sustainability of women-led enterprises.

¨     Childcare as a Structural Constraint: Affordable childcare remains a decisive factor for women’s workforce participation, yet fewer than half of economies offer financial or tax support. Globally, only 30% of needed childcare policies exist, and in low-income countries, barely 1% of support systems are operational.

¨     Demographic Urgency: Over the next decade, 1.2 billion youth will enter the workforce, nearly half of them girls.

¨     With many coming from high gender-gap regions, ensuring equal opportunity is an economic imperative, not just a social goal.

¨     Progress Noted by the Report: Despite implementation gaps, 68 economies enacted 113 gender-related reforms in the last two years. Most reforms focused on entrepreneurship and violence protection, while seven countries introduced or expanded paternity leave to promote shared caregiving.

¨     Regional Highlights: Sub-Saharan Africa recorded the highest reform momentum with 33 legal changes. Countries such as Madagascar and Somalia removed restrictions on women working in sectors like construction and manufacturing.

¨  Country Example – Egypt: Egypt emerged as the top reformer by expanding maternity leave from 90 to 120 days and introducing paid paternity leave. It also mandated equal pay, enabled flexible work requests, and improved its legal gender equality score by nearly 10 points.