00:00 Thank you and good afternoon everybody.
00:02 Good afternoon.
00:03 Um,
00:03 I'm really excited to be at the data playground here and play with you about data.
00:08 Um,
00:09 my name's Julia Braun Miller.
00:10 I'm a senior private sector development specialist with
00:13 the Women Business and the Law team,
00:15 and we're gonna spend the next 20 minutes together to explore how
00:18 women business under the law data is used and has been used
00:22 to,
00:23 um,
00:23 create jobs for women and boost economic growth globally.
00:29 Picture this.
00:30 A key.
00:32 A key to unlock the world's growth,
00:35 lifting millions out of poverty,
00:37 and breaking barriers to economic participation everywhere.
00:42 Sounds like a game changer,
00:43 right?
00:45 And that key
00:47 Is equal opportunity
00:49 for
00:49 women.
00:51 Currently,
00:52 the playing field is far from being equal
00:55 for all women and girls worldwide.
00:58 And if you continue on this trajectory,
01:01 it'll take over 300 years
01:05 until your sisters
01:06 and your daughters,
01:07 your wives,
01:08 your grandchildren,
01:09 and even your great grandchildren
01:12 will be able to fully exercise
01:14 their voice,
01:14 agency and leadership.
01:18 Until then,
01:19 According to the World Bank,
01:21 women will continue to be denied 1/3
01:24 of the legal rights that men enjoy.
01:27 They will earn less
01:29 than men
01:30 for work of equal value.
01:32 They face greater risk of violence
01:34 in their homes,
01:34 at work,
01:35 in transportation,
01:36 in schools,
01:37 online.
01:38 And they will keep shouldering the majority
01:41 of unpaid care work.
01:44 The list is endless.
01:46 And again,
01:47 you may think,
01:48 well,
01:48 this sounds pretty awful,
01:50 but it does not really affect me directly.
01:53 I'm doing well.
01:55 But
01:56 what if I were to tell you it actually does directly affect all of you
02:01 and all of us.
02:03 Because
02:03 equality for women is not just a matter of social justice,
02:07 it is fundamental for economic development.
02:11 According to the World Bank,
02:12 gender equality is essential for a world free of poverty.
02:16 And closing the gender gap in male and female employment rates
02:20 could raise global GDP by about 20%.
02:24 And it could double the global growth rate over the next decade
02:28 and this economic growth would benefit everyone.
02:31 It means
02:31 more jobs,
02:33 better services,
02:35 and better social security systems for you.
02:40 So we
02:41 cannot just wait 300 years for change.
02:47 So how,
02:48 how do we change the timeline?
02:51 Simple.
02:52 By increasing the number of women in the workforce
02:55 through
02:56 legal and policy reforms.
02:59 Equal rights and
03:01 access to opportunities correlate strongly
03:03 with increased numbers of women entering and remaining in the labor force,
03:07 and this is where the World Bank's Women Business and the Law Project comes in.
03:11 Our team,
03:12 and I'm so happy to see them here today,
03:14 our team works really,
03:16 really hard
03:17 to
03:18 produce high quality data on laws and policies that affect,
03:21 affect women's ability to work,
03:23 and our research shows you where the laws fail
03:27 to provide women equal opportunities.
03:30 And this data can be used by governments,
03:32 by academics,
03:33 by civil society,
03:34 by the private sector,
03:35 by all of you here
03:37 to inform global policy dialogue
03:39 and drive economic growth,
03:41 poverty reduction,
03:42 and sustainable development.
03:44 And now let me tell you how our World Bank Women Business and the Law Project is making
03:50 a difference in real life.
03:54 Real lives like Anatoli.
03:56 Anatole is a teacher in Rwanda at a
03:58 primary school,
03:59 Bisa the primary school,
04:00 and only 6 weeks after she gave birth to her baby,
04:04 Anatoli faced a really difficult decision.
04:07 She could either return to work.
04:09 With her newborn
04:11 And lose 80%,
04:12 uh,
04:12 she could either stay at home
04:14 and lose 80% of her pay or return to work with her newborn.
04:18 And so
04:19 she chose to return to work,
04:21 bringing her six week old baby along with her
04:24 and taking care of her,
04:26 checking in on her during her work breaks.
04:28 And of course the mom and the baby,
04:29 they were still pretty weak,
04:30 so it was a very difficult time.
04:34 But the law
04:35 left her no other option.
04:37 The Women Business and the Law Report flagged this gap in the law,
04:40 and thanks
04:42 to global
04:43 local grassroots advocacy,
04:45 legal change happened.
04:47 And now women in Rwanda
04:49 have
04:50 12 weeks of fully paid maternity leave,
04:53 so mothers like Anatoli no longer have to choose between
04:57 caring for their baby and their jobs.
05:00 In what other ways does Women Business in the Law Project benefit women?
05:04 We have
05:05 practical benchmarks where every country can see
05:08 where should legal reforms happen,
05:09 where are they most important
05:11 to bring women into the workforce,
05:13 for example,
05:14 threats of safety,
05:16 violence against women may prevent them from working.
05:19 And that's women like Elsa.
05:21 Elsa is a 24 year old woman,
05:23 uh,
05:24 in Jordan,
05:24 and she works in an agricultural company in the Jordan Valley.
05:29 And that requires her daily to commute to work using public transportation.
05:34 So for her,
05:35 until recently,
05:36 leaving the home meant that she faced threats
05:38 of robbery and harassment in the public buses.
05:42 And the World Bank put a spotlight on this issue
05:45 and then supported the government of Jordan
05:47 to implement a new bus system.
05:50 With this change,
05:50 now buses offer um services like security
05:53 cameras and capacity limits and air conditioning.
05:57 And these buses are a saving grace for women like Elsa
06:01 to allow them to move freely and safely and participate in the workforce.
06:06 And I have a 3rd example,
06:08 and that's Azerbaijan.
06:09 Azerbaijan recently made a giant leap
06:12 towards
06:13 equal access to work for women.
06:17 Previously,
06:17 the law,
06:18 um,
06:18 prevented women from working in 674 jobs including
06:24 train engineers,
06:25 bus drivers,
06:25 and carpenters.
06:27 But again,
06:28 thanks to the World Bank and women Business and the law data,
06:31 legal reform happened and these barriers were removed
06:35 and there's a very inspiring story of Samira,
06:37 who you see in the picture here.
06:39 Samira is the first female railway driver at Azerbaijan Railways.
06:44 She's 26 and she graduated from vocational school and now she supports her family.
06:50 And Samira shares her joy and her pride
06:52 in pursuing her childhood dream of being a train driver,
06:56 and this dream would have been impossible
06:58 without the legal reforms that happened.
07:02 So reforms like these are real life examples
07:05 how we can all work together and come together as
07:07 nations and harness the full potential that we have,
07:11 empower women
07:12 and empower them to work as equals alongside men.
07:16 So now
07:17 Anatoli,
07:19 she can balance motherhood and her career.
07:21 Elsa can commute to work safely.
07:24 And Samira can drive trains.
07:28 Gender equality is not a woman's issue.
07:31 It is an everyone's issue.
07:35 And gender equality is also one of the smartest investments that you can make.
07:40 It unlocks an economy's full potential.
07:43 It drives innovation
07:45 and it creates prosperity for all of us.
07:48 So that's why as a society we must come together and create a gender equal planet.
07:54 Of course we cannot change
07:56 what we don't know,
07:58 but
07:58 we do know
08:00 women business and the law has the evidence,
08:03 and evidence
08:04 is transformative.
08:06 It shows us what is missing,
08:09 what is broken,
08:10 and how to fix it.
08:12 So we don't need to reinvent the wheel here.
08:14 The answers are already here.
08:16 The key is
08:18 understanding the data that we have and
08:19 then making gender equality work for everybody.
08:23 And again that's where women business in the law comes in.
08:25 It's more than just data,
08:27 it is a road map.
08:30 It tells us exactly what's holding women
08:32 and girls back from participating in the workforce
08:35 and how to change it.
08:38 So the path to transformation is clear
08:40 and the time to act for all of us is now.
08:43 Women business and the law has the knowledge
08:46 and it has the tools
08:48 and the good news is that we have been doing this for 15
08:50 of this work for 15 years that we've been analyzing and collecting data
08:54 so now you have
08:55 this knowledge and the tools at your disposal as well.
09:00 So let me end by saying,
09:02 what are we asking from you?
09:04 First we ask you to share our data.
09:07 Share our data with your friends and colleagues that are here today just
09:09 to shed light on law and policy gaps in your own country.
09:14 Second
09:15 We ask you to fund our work.
09:18 Um,
09:18 invest in gender equality
09:20 not just because it's the right thing to do
09:23 but because it's the smartest move that you can do right now
09:27 to create a stronger and more prosperous world.
09:29 And lastly,
09:31 we ask you to use our data.
09:33 Use it to drive legal policy and institutional reform
09:36 and that is exactly why we're here at the data playground right now.
09:40 Um,
09:40 please do feel free to take out your phone
09:43 and start playing with our data.
09:45 You can access it by,
09:46 um,
09:46 visiting our website
09:48 WBL.worldbank.org.
09:51 Um,
09:51 and then you find key resources as
09:53 country specific snapshots and topic specific snapshots,
09:56 um,
09:56 and very deep dives of research,
09:59 uh,
09:59 blogs that the team has written,
10:00 case studies,
10:01 etc.
10:02 etc.
10:03 on all topics related to equal opportunities for women.
10:06 So together we can change laws
10:09 and ensure equal opportunity for women
10:11 because
10:12 we just heard it benefits everyone.
10:16 So let us explore our data.
10:19 Um,
10:22 We have
10:23 10 indicators that measure access to women's opportunity and it ranges from
10:28 women's safety like we talked about Elsa,
10:30 um,
10:30 public transportation,
10:32 um,
10:32 and mobility,
10:34 um,
10:34 to equal access,
10:35 um,
10:36 to pay to the same jobs,
10:38 um,
10:38 and,
10:39 uh,
10:40 access to credit,
10:41 starting a business up until receiving a pension.
10:45 But our key finding is that
10:47 today women still have just 2/3
10:50 of the legal rights of men,
10:52 meaning that 3.9 billion women worldwide face
10:55 legal barriers to their economic opportunity,
10:57 and not one single country,
10:58 let me tell you,
10:59 not one single country,
11:00 if you're looking on your phones,
11:01 um,
11:02 has
11:03 equal
11:04 access to economic opportunities for women under the law.
11:07 But good news also we have captured 2000 reforms as mentioned our data
11:12 we've been collecting it for 15 years and our data
11:14 set is actually available over a much longer time frame,
11:16 over 53 years,
11:19 and that captures 2000 reforms across 190 economies that we cover
11:23 showing where laws have changed and provide women
11:26 with equal access to jobs against stories like Elsa
11:29 with Samira,
11:30 um,
11:31 and,
11:32 uh,
11:32 Anatole.
11:34 And we don't stop at measuring laws.
11:35 We also measure implementation of the laws and policy mechanisms that are there,
11:40 um,
11:40 to support laws,
11:42 making sure that the laws actually reach their target audience,
11:45 um,
11:46 but what we find is that only 40% of legal systems,
11:49 um,
11:50 of,
11:50 of supportive systems are in place to implement laws,
11:53 um,
11:53 and that could be institutions,
11:55 it could be action plans,
11:57 collection of sexist aggregated data,
11:59 um.
12:01 Again,
12:01 to make sure that women actually have access to justice
12:04 and we look at expert opinions
12:06 our contributors,
12:07 our expert contributors tell us
12:09 how well
12:10 the laws are working for women and where the gaps are in practice.
12:15 Um,
12:15 so
12:16 let's practice this a little bit.
12:18 Um,
12:19 anyone who has had a chance to look at their country snapshot,
12:21 if you found it on our website again you can sco,
12:23 um,
12:23 download
12:24 economy snapshots on this QR code,
12:26 um,
12:27 look up your own country and maybe,
12:29 you know,
12:29 if you wanna tell me what,
12:30 what do you see.
12:32 Uh,
12:32 please,
12:33 uh,
12:33 where,
12:33 where are you from?
12:34 I'm
12:35 from Egypt,
12:36 um,
12:36 let's see.
12:38 Um,
12:39 so
12:39 what do you see?
12:41 I see a 37.5%,
12:43 um,
12:43 legal frameworks score for Egypt,
12:46 37%.
12:47 That is out of 100,
12:48 so that means
12:50 women have a little more than a third of the rights that men have,
12:53 which is really sad.
12:55 It's very sad,
12:55 yeah.
12:56 Does this surprise you?
12:58 Uh,
12:58 no,
12:58 it's expected for Egypt.
13:01 Can you women,
13:02 as an Egyptian woman,
13:02 I would say that this is very much expected.
13:05 Yeah,
13:06 do you see,
13:07 for example,
13:07 where the biggest gaps,
13:09 what holds women back the most if you look at the different topics on,
13:12 on the snapshot like on pay,
13:15 marriage,
13:17 uh,
13:17 parenthood,
13:19 and assets.
13:21 And that's,
13:21 that's a really good point to make,
13:23 you know,
13:23 we talked about the importance of protecting women from,
13:26 uh,
13:26 gender-based violence because there's a direct link between,
13:30 um,
13:30 exposure to harassment and threats and violence
13:33 and,
13:34 um,
13:34 economic participation and so also the same with
13:37 marriage laws like things that you don't immediately see
13:40 that could be an economic impact of this law,
13:43 but family law is a huge impediment
13:45 for for women worldwide to participate in the workforce.
13:48 We can also look,
13:49 um,
13:50 I mentioned a really positive trend of 2000 legal
13:53 reforms that we have captured over the past,
13:55 um,
13:57 50 years,
13:58 and that's a reforms database.
14:00 So you go to our website and you click on the
14:02 little tab that says reforms if you wanna try that,
14:05 um,
14:05 and then you'll find a search bar and in that
14:08 search bar you can put your own country again.
14:11 Um,
14:12 or you know we can choose a country.
14:13 Let's choose Azerbaijan.
14:14 I,
14:15 I,
14:15 I love the story of Samira,
14:16 like driving trains.
14:17 It,
14:17 it was also one of my childhood dreams,
14:19 so I relate to her,
14:20 um,
14:21 so if you look up Azerbaijan and,
14:23 and,
14:23 and it reformed some laws,
14:24 um,
14:25 according to that story that we tell,
14:27 can you see what exactly,
14:28 what exactly happened?
14:30 Yeah.
14:33 I,
14:33 I can see in the reforms that that
14:36 I think Azerbaijan reformed the labor code
14:39 lifted restrictions on women's ability to work in jobs deemed dangerous.
14:44 What do you have?
14:45 I was looking at my country Italy.
14:47 I was quite surprised to see how
14:50 high the score is
14:52 and the lowest score is in marriage for differences in divorce.
14:57 Exactly.
14:57 So that,
14:58 that's an interesting point again.
14:59 It goes back to
15:01 This idea that oh why do I look at family law and marriage?
15:05 What does it have to do with women accessing jobs
15:07 and economic empowerment and again let me tell you it does
15:11 if a woman needs her husband's permission to work,
15:13 which is still the case in over 30 countries worldwide,
15:16 that prevents her from accessing jobs
15:18 and also like I like that you bring up Italy
15:21 because.
15:21 Often we see maybe OECD high income economies,
15:25 you know,
15:25 being more gender equal.
15:27 It's not necessarily the case,
15:29 and these changes have been
15:30 very recent
15:31 until the 1970s in many,
15:33 many countries,
15:33 women actually in France,
15:35 in Germany,
15:36 in other countries,
15:37 in Switzerland,
15:38 and Spain,
15:39 women needed the permission of their husband to work.
15:42 So we can some of us can definitely remember these times it's very recent,
15:45 but again
15:46 with change we see positive outcomes for women.
15:49 We see a huge growth of female labor force participation in these countries,
15:53 um,
15:54 and since we're talking about Italy,
15:55 I,
15:55 I'm curious,
15:56 um,
15:57 so we talked about legal,
15:58 uh,
15:58 differences,
15:59 but what about the supportive frameworks,
16:01 right?
16:01 That's the second part of our research
16:03 where we're looking at implementation of the laws
16:05 what actually governments are doing to support women's
16:09 access to equal opportunity and in order to implement.
16:11 Loss.
16:12 I see you're nodding.
16:13 Any,
16:13 any interesting observation?
16:15 Yes,
16:15 big drop from 95 to 65.
16:18 It's a score for supportive frameworks,
16:21 so big implementation gap.
16:23 Wow.
16:23 So in Italy we have about
16:25 90,
16:26 95%
16:28 of
16:28 legal rights for women,
16:29 but only 60%
16:31 of the measures that are needed to really implement
16:33 the laws to make sure that the laws,
16:36 um,
16:36 have an effect on women and reach their target audience,
16:40 so.
16:41 Huge gaps.
16:43 Um,
16:43 yeah,
16:43 with this,
16:44 I think we can conclude it.
16:45 I'm happy to stay here,
16:47 happy to keep again exploring our website,
16:49 our profiles with you,
16:51 um,
16:52 and thank you for participating.
16:54 See you next time.
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Discover how equal opportunity for women can unlock global economic growth in this inspiring talk. The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law project uses legal data and real-world stories to illustrate women's economic opportunities, and lift entire nations. Watch now to explore how investing in women's rights benefits us all—socially and economically.
This presentation was delivered at the Data Playground of the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings 2025.