Resources
In the past 50 years, women's legal status has improved all over the world. But many laws still make it difficult for women to fully participate in economic life. Sarah Iqbal and Paula Tavares from the World Bank Group presented key findings of the 2014 Women, Business and the Law report over a brown-bag lunch on 16 April 2014 at UN Women Headquarters in New York. The event was chaired by Saraswathi Menon, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division, and attended by UN staff, academia, and civil society working on or interested in women’s economic empowerment.
Participants had the opportunity to discuss how laws and regulations that differentiate employment rights for women and men restrict women’s participation and leadership in the formal economy.
“Almost 90 percent of the 143 economies covered in the study had at least one legal difference that restricted women’s economic opportunities. In Burundi, for example, married women cannot be the legal heads of household in the same way as married men. In Chile, only husbands can legally administer property under the default marital regime”, emphasized Ms. Iqbal in her presentation.
The presenters also discussed the impact of international legal instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), on catalyzing legal reforms for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Despite some progress, current legislation restricts the types of jobs women can do in at least 79 economies. This issue is particularly acute in some countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, for example, the legislation prevents women from performing more than 250 types of jobs. There is some good news though. The Philippines lifted restrictions on night work for women which enabled more than 300,000 women the benefit from employment in the fast-growing business process outsourcing industry.
Country specific efforts to increase gender parity in the law were discussed at length including examples from Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and the Slovak Republic.
Ms. Iqbal and Ms. Tavares highlighted the importance of joint efforts, like the e-discussion co-organized by UN Women and the World Bank Group to mobilize wider groups of stakeholders. The e-discussion hosted on the Knowledge Gateway for Women’s Economic Empowerment brought together more than 12,000 women and men from 80 countries to discuss and learn about the issues of women and employment laws and provide qualitative and valuable inputs to support the findings of the World Bank Group report.
n the past 50 years, women's legal status has improved all over the world. But many laws still make it difficult for women to fully participate in economic life. Sarah Iqbal and Paula Tavares from the World Bank Group presented key findings of the 2014 Women, Business and the Law report over a brown-bag lunch on 16 April 2014 at UN Women Headquarters in New York. The event was chaired by Saraswathi Menon, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division, and attended by UN staff, academia, and civil society working on or interested in women’s economic empowerment.
Participants had the opportunity to discuss how laws and regulations that differentiate employment rights for women and men restrict women’s participation and leadership in the formal economy.
“Almost 90 percent of the 143 economies covered in the study had at least one legal difference that restricted women’s economic opportunities. In Burundi, for example, married women cannot be the legal heads of household in the same way as married men. In Chile, only husbands can legally administer property under the default marital regime”, emphasized Ms. Iqbal in her presentation.
The presenters also discussed the impact of international legal instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), on catalyzing legal reforms for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Despite some progress, current legislation restricts the types of jobs women can do in at least 79 economies. This issue is particularly acute in some countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, for example, the legislation prevents women from performing more than 250 types of jobs. There is some good news though. The Philippines lifted restrictions on night work for women which enabled more than 300,000 women the benefit from employment in the fast-growing business process outsourcing industry.
Country specific efforts to increase gender parity in the law were discussed at length including examples from Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and the Slovak Republic.
Ms. Iqbal and Ms. Tavares highlighted the importance of joint efforts, like the e-discussion co-organized by UN Women and the World Bank Group to mobilize wider groups of stakeholders. The e-discussion hosted on the Knowledge Gateway for Women’s Economic Empowerment brought together more than 12,000 women and men from 80 countries to discuss and learn about the issues of women and employment laws and provide qualitative and valuable inputs to support the findings of the World Bank Group report.
- See more at: http://www.empowerwomen.org/news/women-business-and-the-law-report#sthash.7AwQFp1H.dpufn the past 50 years, women's legal status has improved all over the world. But many laws still make it difficult for women to fully participate in economic life. Sarah Iqbal and Paula Tavares from the World Bank Group presented key findings of the 2014 Women, Business and the Law report over a brown-bag lunch on 16 April 2014 at UN Women Headquarters in New York. The event was chaired by Saraswathi Menon, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division, and attended by UN staff, academia, and civil society working on or interested in women’s economic empowerment.
Participants had the opportunity to discuss how laws and regulations that differentiate employment rights for women and men restrict women’s participation and leadership in the formal economy.
“Almost 90 percent of the 143 economies covered in the study had at least one legal difference that restricted women’s economic opportunities. In Burundi, for example, married women cannot be the legal heads of household in the same way as married men. In Chile, only husbands can legally administer property under the default marital regime”, emphasized Ms. Iqbal in her presentation.
The presenters also discussed the impact of international legal instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), on catalyzing legal reforms for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Despite some progress, current legislation restricts the types of jobs women can do in at least 79 economies. This issue is particularly acute in some countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, for example, the legislation prevents women from performing more than 250 types of jobs. There is some good news though. The Philippines lifted restrictions on night work for women which enabled more than 300,000 women the benefit from employment in the fast-growing business process outsourcing industry.
Country specific efforts to increase gender parity in the law were discussed at length including examples from Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and the Slovak Republic.
Ms. Iqbal and Ms. Tavares highlighted the importance of joint efforts, like the e-discussion co-organized by UN Women and the World Bank Group to mobilize wider groups of stakeholders. The e-discussion hosted on the Knowledge Gateway for Women’s Economic Empowerment brought together more than 12,000 women and men from 80 countries to discuss and learn about the issues of women and employment laws and provide qualitative and valuable inputs to support the findings of the World Bank Group report.
- See more at: http://www.empowerwomen.org/news/women-business-and-the-law-report#sthash.7AwQFp1H.dpuf