Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers

Many countries seek to improve women’s economic participation with the introduction of targeted laws and regulations. The impact of these reforms appears significant, although the supporting evidence is stronger in some areas than others. This insi...

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Main Author: Adnane, Souad
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/140781634540887017/Women-s-Economic-Participation-and-the-Impact-of-Regulatory-Barriers
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36511
id okr-10986-36511
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-365112021-11-10T05:11:07Z Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers Adnane, Souad FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION CHILDCARE LABOR MARKET ACCESS TO FINANCE INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING GENDER LEGAL REFORM Many countries seek to improve women’s economic participation with the introduction of targeted laws and regulations. The impact of these reforms appears significant, although the supporting evidence is stronger in some areas than others. This insight paper considers the impact of legal discrimination and the absence of protective legislation on women’s economic outcomes, namely employment and earnings. It also explores the various pathways or channels through which laws and regulations affect those outcomes. An understanding of those mechanisms is important to the effective design and implementation of gender equal and gender sensitive laws and policies. A survey of the literature uncovered five key pathways that individually and in combination can help structure and improve the understanding of how legal reform impacts women’s employment and earnings. The available literature offered more causal evidence in some reform areas, namely property rights, retirement, and divorce laws, than in others. Empirical evidence from the remaining areas (childcare leave policies, occupational segregation, legal capacity within marriage) still establishes significant and strong associations, especially in the first area, between the studied legal reforms and women’s economic outcomes. Findings reported in the area of legal protections from violence and discrimination remain limited and inconclusive. There is a significant gap in the literature in terms of studies covering certain reforms in developing countries which undermines the generalizability of the findings. The paper concludes that although legal reform is not enough to bring about change, it is a critical first step in initiating social change and promoting women’s economic participation and women’s employment in the formal sector. 2021-11-09T18:21:00Z 2021-11-09T18:21:00Z 2021-10-18 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/140781634540887017/Women-s-Economic-Participation-and-the-Impact-of-Regulatory-Barriers http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36511 English Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Insight; CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
CHILDCARE
LABOR MARKET
ACCESS TO FINANCE
INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING
GENDER
LEGAL REFORM
spellingShingle FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
CHILDCARE
LABOR MARKET
ACCESS TO FINANCE
INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING
GENDER
LEGAL REFORM
Adnane, Souad
Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
relation Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Insight;
description Many countries seek to improve women’s economic participation with the introduction of targeted laws and regulations. The impact of these reforms appears significant, although the supporting evidence is stronger in some areas than others. This insight paper considers the impact of legal discrimination and the absence of protective legislation on women’s economic outcomes, namely employment and earnings. It also explores the various pathways or channels through which laws and regulations affect those outcomes. An understanding of those mechanisms is important to the effective design and implementation of gender equal and gender sensitive laws and policies. A survey of the literature uncovered five key pathways that individually and in combination can help structure and improve the understanding of how legal reform impacts women’s employment and earnings. The available literature offered more causal evidence in some reform areas, namely property rights, retirement, and divorce laws, than in others. Empirical evidence from the remaining areas (childcare leave policies, occupational segregation, legal capacity within marriage) still establishes significant and strong associations, especially in the first area, between the studied legal reforms and women’s economic outcomes. Findings reported in the area of legal protections from violence and discrimination remain limited and inconclusive. There is a significant gap in the literature in terms of studies covering certain reforms in developing countries which undermines the generalizability of the findings. The paper concludes that although legal reform is not enough to bring about change, it is a critical first step in initiating social change and promoting women’s economic participation and women’s employment in the formal sector.
format Working Paper
author Adnane, Souad
author_facet Adnane, Souad
author_sort Adnane, Souad
title Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
title_short Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
title_full Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
title_fullStr Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
title_full_unstemmed Women’s Economic Participation and the Impact of Regulatory Barriers
title_sort women’s economic participation and the impact of regulatory barriers
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2021
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/140781634540887017/Women-s-Economic-Participation-and-the-Impact-of-Regulatory-Barriers
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36511
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