MAY 4, 2021

The greater the level of economic freedom, the more likely it is that men and
women will receive equal legal treatment.

Women’s Rights Are Improving Worldwide

By Ian Vasquez | @VasquezIan
By Guillermina Sutter Schneider | @gsutters

The 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
example, in terms of women’s mobility, the Middle East and North Africa is the region that has
seen the most progress, but 65% of the region’s countries still limit women’s mobility compared to
men’s, making the MENA region the world’s least equal by that measure. In the area of
entrepreneurship, sub‐Saharan Africa is the most improved, and dramatically so, but 17% of the
region’s countries still treat women unequally in that regard. Thirty percent of countries in the
world restrict women’s property rights in some way.

The move toward greater equality of rights, important in and of itself, also tends to generate
positive economic and social outcomes. For example, studies have found that improving certain
economic rights, such as the freedom to open a bank account, leads to increases in labor supplied
by women. Probably because they increase women’s ability to negotiate, property and inheritance
rights for women are associated with improvements in female education and health, educational
improvements in the next generation, and decreases in fertility rates. (See here and here, for
example.)

Equality before the law and freedom are compatible, and indeed the former is an essential part of
the rule of law which is itself a condition of freedom. But freedom and equal treatment before the
law are not necessarily the same thing. A good example is Venezuela. The country gets the
highest ratings on gender equity according to the World Bank, but Venezuela is also among the
least free countries in the world. There can be little doubt that in a much freer country like
Uruguay, which ranks a bit below Venezuela on gender equality, women enjoy greater
opportunities, well‐being, and better treatment under the law in general than they do in
Venezuela.

Nonetheless, studies show that the greater the level of economic freedom, the more likely it is that
men and women will receive equal legal treatment. To most benefit women, the promotion of
equal rights between the sexes should go hand in hand with the promotion of high levels of
overall freedom.

(For a closer look at the data and how we compiled it, see here.)

This post also appeared in Cato at Liberty.

Ian Vasquez is vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute and director of its
Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and co-author of The Human Freedom Index.

Guillermina Sutter Schneider is a research & project manager in the Cato Institute’s Center for
Global Liberty and Prosperity.

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