Why is it in the News?

India's ranked improved to 113 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Women, Business and Law index, according to the 10th edition of the report released Monday.

About Women, Business and Law Index:

• The "Women, Business and the Law (WBL)" index is a project of the World Bank Group, specifically designed to measure the legal environment for women's economic opportunities across 190 economies.
• It's distinct from a general "Gender Equality Index" as it focuses specifically on legal frameworks and their impact on women's involvement in business and professional life.

What does it Measure?

• The WBL index assesses legal frameworks across eight indicators:
  • Mobility (freedom of movement)
  • Workplace (discrimination, maternity leave, etc.)
  • Pay (equal pay for equal work)
  • Marriage (property rights, domestic violence)
  • Parenthood (parental leave, child custody)
  • Entrepreneurship (starting and running a business)
  • Assets (ownership and inheritance)
  • Pension (access to and benefits)
• Scoring: Each indicator is scored on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 representing the highest level of legal rights and protections for women.
  • The overall score for a country is the average of these eight indicators.
• Latest version: The latest edition is "Women, Business and the Law 2024", released in October 2023.
• This version also introduces two new indicators:
  • Safety (addressing violence against women)
  • Childcare (availability, affordability, and quality)

Highlights of the Report:

• Women spend an average of 2.4 more hours a day on unpaid care work than men—much of it on the care of children.
• Only 62 economies—fewer than a third—have quality standards governing childcare services, which has an adverse impact on the employment opportunity of women as mothers with young children have their battles to pick.
• Women face hindrances in areas such as entrepreneurship as just one in every five economies mandate gender-sensitive criteria for public procurement processes, meaning women are deprived of significant economic opportunities.

About India:

• According to the 10th edition of the Women, Business and Law index, India ranks 113 out of 190 countries in the Index.
  • The addition of Safety and childcare as indicators in the new index is believed to have improved India’s ranking slightly.
• The index shows that in India, women enjoy 60% of the legal rights compared to men, which is lower than the global average of 64.2%, but much higher than the 45.9% of the legal protections compared to men.
• Over the years, India’s score has remained constant at 74.4%, whereas a total of 14 countries around the world, including Denmark, Canada, and Finland, score a perfect 100 in the legal framework score.
  • Some of the less developed countries like Ethiopia, Namibia, and even Burundi have better scores than India.
• India’s performance is much lower in providing supportive frameworks, such as programs, services, budgets, procedures, inspections, and sanctions for non-compliance with quality standards.
  • Only 54.2% of the supportive frameworks needed were established in the country.