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GENDER, LAW AND ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION
By: Ms. SIVASAKTHI A
ABSTRACT
In this work, a model of gender disparity and economic growth is presented, with particular attention to how women allocate their time between producing for the market, producing at home, raising their children, and financing their education. By altering how women allocate their time and encouraging the development of human capital, the analysis demonstrates that achieving greater gender equality can have a substantial positive impact on economic growth. Encouraging governmental policies, a comprehensive strategy, and sustained dedication from all development stakeholders are necessary to realize women’s economic autonomy. This new research can inform policy discussions to ensure women’s full and equal participation in the economy. The indicators build evidence of the critical relationship between legal gender equality and women’s employment and entrepreneurship. It also deals with specific country case studies which cover a cross-section of different profiles of socio-economic development and cultural values.
KEYWORDS : economic growth, gender inequality, equal participation, women’s employment, entrepreneurship
INTRODUCING THE WOMEN, BUSINESS AND THE LAW REPORT
Imagine a world where every woman’s economic potential is not just recognized, but fully unleashed. The World Bank’s annual Women’s Business and Law report spans 190 economies. It delves into ten critical areas that shape a woman’s economic life, from women’s safety, from violence to equality in entrepreneurship, from fairness of pay to equal rights and retirement. The report for the first time assesses not only laws on the books de jure measures, but also policy instruments for legal enforcement and expert insights on the outcome of the law for women de facto components. Even in a region that has made such remarkable progress, pockets of exclusion continue to prevent millions of people from fulfilling their true potential.
INSIGHTS FROM THE LATEST REPORT
Using the new framework, the report reveals a stark reality. Women around the world possess just two thirds of the legal rights afforded, to mention far less than previously thought. No economy has achieved complete legal equality for women in all areas measured. The findings are a wake-up call. Only 2/5 of the necessary support systems for gender-equal laws are in place. Every economy could do more to have robust data, adequate budgets, procedures or services that actively promote gender equality. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – 5 was created specifically to achieve gender equality and address other ills that go against women’s interests.
BIG GAPS IN LEGAL SYSTEMS
The report highlights big gaps in legal enforcement systems and how they are seen to work by experts. It points to an urgent need for all countries to take action to close the gender gap. Most countries need to improve the rules governing childcare services, support for female entrepreneurs and women’s safety. Supportive frameworks are needed to support laws related to women’s rights and the workplace and their access to assets, child care and better pay. Expert opinion suggests that about two thirds of women have the same rights as men, which points to challenges in making these rights a reality. International Monetary Fund First Deputy MD Gita Gopinath said it would now take more than 130 years to close gender gaps worldwide.
REFORMS AND EFFORTS BY 18 COUNTRIES
The report doesn’t just highlight the gaps. It recognizes efforts by 18 countries that made strides in legal gender equality, adopting 47 reforms across all indicators. While all regions have shown progress, sub-Saharan Africa stands out. Six economies enacted half the region’s reforms. The absence of reforms in South Asia for the first time in 18 years is a reminder of how difficult the journey towards legal gender equality is. Most countries advance laws in three categories of reform protection, parental rights and workplace protection. The new approach introduced in this year’s report reveals that discriminatory laws and practices continue to prevent women from working or starting businesses on an equal footing with men.
A NEW FRONTIER IN MEASURING WOMEN’S RIGHTS
By expanding the set of indicators from 8 to 10, updating the scope of existing indicators and adding more real world perspective to legal assessments, The 2024 report sets a new frontier in measuring women’s rights. It helps build evidence of what governments can do to accelerate progress towards gender equality in business and the law. Explore the reports’ findings and Risc-V insights. Let’s build a world where women’s rights are realized, not just written.
THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF GIVING WOMEN EQUAL RIGHTS IN THE WORKPLACE
The Indian Parliament passed the Women’s Reservation Bill recently, which will enable women to occupy 33% of our lawmakers seats in the Lok Sabha and in the State Assemblies. The World Economic Forum expects that it will now take more than 130 years to close gender gaps worldwide, up from about 100 years before the pandemic. Globally, 64 million women lost their jobs during the pandemic because women are more likely to work in informal, temporary and part-time jobs – the types of jobs employers tend to cut first in a downturn- with lower pay and less social protection. And an estimated 80% of people displaced by climate change are women. It says that a 10% point increase in women’s representation in parliament leads to a 0.74% point increase in GDP growth. The International Monetary Fund, on its part, says evidence – from macroeconomic, sectoral and firm-level data- shows that women and men complement each other in the production process, creating an additional benefit from increasing women’s employment on growth.
ACCORDING TO MAMTA MURTI, VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Economies that limit women’s contributions cannot reach their full potential. When laws restrict women’s voices and agencies fail to protect them from violence and discriminate against them in the workplace and in retirement, women are less likely to fully participate in the workplace and contribute with their talent, knowledge and skills. The pace of reforms towards gender equality around the world has fallen to its lowest pace in over two decades while economic growth has slowed. The Women, business and law project tracks how laws impact women’s decisions and opportunities at various stages in their lives. From the basic freedoms of movement and safety to the challenges of reconciling work and parenting and the ability to own assets and access credit. The rate of progress has been uneven across economies, regions, and areas of reform, and only 14 countries are reaching legal gender parity. Equally, concerning is that previously granted rights have been reversed. The report finds that despite multiple overlapping global crises, most regions have advanced towards legal gender equality across all the areas measured. These reforms have happened most where they are needed with economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and Pacific leading the way. Many of the reform efforts have addressed laws affecting women’s pay and their careers after having children. As a result, The Women’s Business and Law score has improved by over 50% on average globally. Empowering women benefits them and the communities that they live in. It makes economies more inclusive, more energetic and more resilient.
ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN INDIA
Economic Participation refers to opportunities available to the person to be able to contribute to the growth of income and output in economy. Opportunities available to a person depends on his or her capabilities, capacities as well as the freedom he or she enjoys to assert the choice of being able to contribute in the economy.
BASED ON A STORY
A young woman in Kazakhstan, Almagul Kabilbekova. When she was 27, she decided to radically change her life and pursue her passion. She quit her job and went to study to be an auto mechanic. In 2019, Almagul got a job as a truck driver, but she was soon fired because women were prohibited from some jobs in Kazakhstan. Over 200 jobs in Kazakhstan were classified as prohibited for women until October 2021. Almagul eventually found another job driving trucks, but in a different country where it was legal for her to work. On October 12th 2021, Kazakhstani President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, signed amendments repealing the ban. But 126 countries still prohibit women from working in the same industries as men. 15 countries have restrictions on women working in transport in particular. This is just an example of how restrictions on women’s employment can limit their ability to pursue their careers, achieve their full potential and contribute to their communities and the economy.
HOW TO GROW THE GLOBAL ECONOMY FOR WOMEN ?
INVESTMENT IN WOMEN’S HUMAN CAPITAL
Equal access to food, healthcare, and education for women provides significant benefits, especially for increasing and developing nations. Consider cash transfers as a means of allowing people in less developed nations to afford basic necessities.
ENABLING WOMEN TO WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME OR START THEIR BUSINESSES
It can be valuable to make changes to employment opportunities, public spending, financial infrastructure and regulations, taxation, and regulations. More women can work and directly create jobs when they’re granted access to high-quality, inexpensive childcare. The internet and mobile phones provide access to new economic opportunities in economies that are emerging or developing.
INCREASING THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP POSITIONS IS ALSO CRITICAL
It demonstrates that increased financial resilience is associated with the presence of women in financial institutions and financial policymaking.
IN WHAT SENSE DOES THE DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND GENDER EQUALITY HAVE AN IMPACT?
Gender equality is a fundamental human right and is essential to creating nations that are prosperous, peaceful and healthy. Development will only be sustainable if it’s benefits accrue equally to women, men and others; and women’s rights won’t manifest until they are integrated into larger initiatives to guarantee everyone can live in dignity and respect.
Women’s economic empowerment is supported by numerous international commitments, such as the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a series of International Labour Organization conventions on gender equality in the workplace, as well as international environmental deals like the Global Biodiversity Framework of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. In accordance with these international obligations, in addition to growing data that demonstrates gender equality makes a substantial contribution to the development of economies and sustainable development, UN Women promotes for women’s economic empowerment.
GENDER IN THE ECONOMY
In the economics of both developed and developing countries, women perform a variety of important responsibilities. Because to gender-biased institutions, disempowering social norms and limited access to formal financial services, employment and education, they often continue experiencing major challenges to achieve their full potential. A growing body of theoretical and empirical research is outlining these different restrictions and assessing effective interventions aimed at eliminating them or giving women the tools they need to overcome them. A Study Group on Gender in the Economy was established with financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to advance the role of gender in both developed and developing economies. Through the establishment of links between contemporary gender issues in the developed world and similar problems in the developing world, the Study Group hopes to gain an understanding of how gender differences have evolved in various “ states of the world ” and recommend ways for future research.
IMPACT OF LEGAL STRUCTURES ON WOMEN’S ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND CIVIL RIGHTS LAW
Constitutional law, which guarantees civil rights and civil liberties, frequently includes legal barriers to women’s economic and political participation. Certain nations have legal frameworks that prohibit women from participating in politics or seeking office. To address gender disparities and advance women’s economic empowerment, nations should start by enshrining in their constitutions the right of women to equal treatment under the law, as well as other fundamental rights like citizenship and freedom of movement. In order to combat gender inequality, legal literacy and women’s access to justice are also critical. Women must have the same legal rights as men in order to pursue legal action, seek legal assistance, testify in court, and have a fair trial. Yet, due to discrimination based on gender, women frequently face legal barriers to exercising their rights. Discrimination based on gender is discouraged when women have proper access to justice and their rights are upheld.
FAMILY LAW
Regulating marriage, divorce, adoption, child custody, and other domestic matters, family law pertains to the most personal aspects of people’s lives. Because of this, a gender imbalance in society is frequently reflected in family law. The legal age for marriage is lower for women than for men in a number of nations. Girls’ chances of completing their education and, consequently, their employment opportunities are limited when they marry young and become mothers at a young age. Today, child marriage would be eliminated, which would boost emerging and developing nations’ long-term annual real GDP growth per capita by almost 1%. Laws that guarantee the husband’s dominance over the marriage have a direct bearing on this economic effect. Legal discrimination against women, such as restrictions on their capacity to be the head of home, has been linked to lower rates of female labor force participation, according to a study. Women’s capacity to pursue professional activities outside the home and their bargaining power when deciding on family responsibilities are both diminished by this type of legal discrimination. Nations like Rwanda have passed legislation granting women the authority to be named the head of the household and giving them the same rights and responsibilities as their husbands, realizing the link between family law and women’s economic empowerment. These policies have helped women maintain their financial security both before and after marriage.
PROPERTY LAW
Conducting profitable economic activities, such as entrepreneurship, requires knowledge of property law since it regulates one’s capacity to acquire, possess, manage, and transfer assets. Assets are necessary for people to support themselves, their families, accumulate money, and act as collateral for loans. Laws that prohibit women from managing, owning, and disposing of assets and other property can seriously impede or deter women from fully engaging in the economy. Certain legislation forbids women from obtaining property during or after a marriage or divorce, or from possessing either type of property on their own. Due to the applicable laws’ adherence to the cultural norm of male lineage transmission, property can be dispersed in ways that are discriminatory and prevent women from inheriting it. Certain women lack the same access to financial services as males, including the ability to open bank accounts. As a result, they are unable to acquire insurance, borrow and save money, or establish credit.
LABOUR LAW
The most prevalent way for women to engage with and contribute to the economy is through employment. The economy loses a great deal of its potential for expansion when women are kept from working. Around the world, 78 percent of men and 55 percent of adult women are employed. In addition, there is a 51 percent income difference and a 37 percent salary gap for women. Women’s employment opportunities are frequently restricted by laws. These restrictions can include those that forbid them from selecting a particular career path or industry based on their skills and interests, as well as those that demand work authorization from a spouse or other male extended family member. Women’s ability to get employment and advance in their careers is frequently hampered by the absence of protection and the inability to stop sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination at work. This starts with discriminatory hiring practices and progresses to worries about women being treated unfairly and fired from their jobs, particularly when they are pregnant or have recently given birth. In order to better address gender inequality, appropriate institutional and legal frameworks offering benefits for eldercare, childcare, and parental leave are lacking. Large formal sector economies tend to have smaller pay inequalities when they have generous parental leave policies in place. When social security and pension legislation fails to take into consideration periods of time when part-time employment is absent due to child or elder care, it has a severe impact on women’s retirement circumstances.
TAX LAW
The applicable tax law rules typically make explicit gender bias easy to identify. A few instances are clearly designating distinct tax rates for individuals based on their gender, allowing tax preferences only for individuals based on gender, or limiting joint company, asset income, or childcare deductions or allowances to individuals based on gender. The family-based technique of calculating income undercuts the individual filing system in the area of personal income taxation and raises the marginal tax rate for secondary earners. To enhance female labor force participation, legal reform may therefore be required to provide for the possibility of individual income taxation. Income tax can be structured to lower the higher effective tax rate on secondary earners, even in systems where the household pays a combined income tax. This can be achieved, for example, by providing tax benefits that encourage the employment of women. The availability of tax deductions for work expenses primarily borne by males but not for work expenses primarily borne by women are more instances of implicit gender prejudice. Tax procedural regulations may also contain implicit or explicit biases, such as prohibiting spouses from filing separate personal income tax returns or requiring the approval of the spouse in cases when separate filing is possible. The economic empowerment of women may be hampered by these formalities.
EMPOWER WOMEN IN FARMING
Nearly half of the world’s agricultural work is done by women, but they tend to have far less access to training and financing than their male counterparts. Providing women with equal access to these tools results in bigger crop yields, bigger incomes and improvements to rural communities as women invest that extra money in their children’s education and health. Nature benefits too, since increasing crop yields on existing farmland reduces one of the main drivers of deforestation. That’s why we’re working with partner organisations and rural communities around the world to fight gender inequality.
WOMEN’S ROLE IN AGRICULTURE IN INDIA
Women produce 50% of the World’s food. Women comprise of 43% of agricultural labour force of developing countries. 78% of India’s employed women work in Agriculture. Women undoubtedly participate actively in farming activities from sowing to harvesting a crop, but in these trying time and unsettling economy, it is critical that they not only assist in the farming process, but also took part in decision making in the purchasing of seeds, planning for seasonal seed sowing, regularly attending government workshops on irrigation, new crop production skills and much more all of which are primarily carried out by males of the household, but it is about time for men and women to start working together to increase their profits. Farmers across India are demanding access to new and improved seeds that have been proven and adopted for years around the world. Women work many more hours than men and ironically it is the most backbreaking and difficult chores. Agricultural work assigned to women are neither appreciated not credited. Maybe it is time to turn that around.
ECONOMIC SURVEY
In India, 14% farmers are women. Percentage of women employed goes even higher.
REALITY CHECK
Huge salary gap, held behind, lack of access to knowledge, lack of knowledge of rights, no control on mobility.
WHAT ARE THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY?
LAWS RELATED TO GENDER EQUALITY IN VARIOUS SECTORS
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS FOR EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN
The Constitution of India provides equal opportunities and rights to Women . Some of the Articles are:
❖ Equality before law. [Article 14]
❖ No discrimination by State on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. [Article 15(i)]
❖ Special provision by State in favour of Women and Children. [Article 15(3)]
❖ Equality of opportunity in matters relating to employment. [Article 16]
❖ Securing adequate means of livelihood for men and women equally. [Article 39(a)]
❖ Equal pay for equal work [Article 39(d)
❖ Promoting Justice on the basis of equal opportunity and to provide free legal aid [Article 39(A)] and Renounce practices derogatory to women. [Article 51(A)e]
❖ 1/3rd reservation for women in panchayats [Article 243(D)] and in Municipalities. [Article 243(T)]
❖ Right to Property to Women. [Article 300(a)]
TAMIL NADU GOVERNMENT IS A FORERUNNER IN IMPLEMENTING VARIOUS WOMEN CENTRIC AND PATH BREAKING SCHEMES SUCH AS :
SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS FOR WOMEN:
UNEQUAL TREATMENT OF MEN AND WOMEN BY ECONOMIC LAW
CASE STUDIES
CONCLUSION
It will be a tremendous challenge to empower women socially, economically, politically, and legally. Transforming the culture of lack of regard for women is not a simple task. While reforms take time, revolutions can bring about changes quickly. In the economy, women have a special place. Women acquire voice and exposure when they become more economically powerful. Women’s empowerment can be greatly aided by their direct involvement in decision-making and income-generating activities. Being an entrepreneur or the family’s major wage earner might assist women in being more economically active, which could improve their status in society.
REFRENCES
