Women ’s Rights Are Improving Worldwide

Ian V ásquez andGuillermina Sutter SchneiderThe World Bank recently released its latest“Women, Business and the Law” annual report that gathers some 50  years of data evaluating dozens of legal indicators regarding women’s rights in 190 countries. For each country, it answers questions such as “Can a woman choose where to live in the same way as a man?” and “Can a woman register a business in the same way as a man?”We looked at 19 of the report ’s indicators that we felt best measured gender equality (we left out some indicators—e.g., on whether the government administers 100% of maternity leave benefits—that we thought were questionable or debatable). The data show that gender inequality worldwide has fallen significantly since 1970 . (See the density plot below in which a rightward shift signifies more equality, and the height of the curve indicates number of cases.)Moreover, every region in the world has seen declines in gender disparity with some —like sub‐​Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean—experiencing notable improvements.Rankings by region and country groupings (using the World Bank ’s classifications) place high‐​income countries as the most gender equal, and the Middle East and North Africa as the region with the greatest gender disparities. For a graphic overview of what we found, click on the preview below.Despite the progress of the past half century, most of the world still has much to improve. For examp...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs