Women, Business and the Law 2023 report: India scores 74.4 in World Bank index on working women

Source: The post is based on the article “India scores 74.4 in World Bank index on working women” published in The Hindu on 4th March 2023.

What is the News?

The World Bank has released the Women, Business and the Law 2023 report.

Based on this report, the World Bank has released the “Index on the life cycle of a working woman”.

What is the Index on the life cycle of a working woman?

Released by: World Bank

A score of 100 on the Index means that women are on an equal standing with men on all the eight indicators being measured.

– For India, the Index used data on the laws and regulations applicable in Mumbai.

What are the key findings of the index?

India’s score was down to 74.4 out of a possible 100.

India scored higher than the 63.7 average for the South Asian region, though lower than Nepal which had the region’s highest score of 80.6. 

Of the 190 economies covered in the Index, only 14 scored a perfect 100.

Observations made on India: India gets a perfect score when it comes to constraints on freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work and constraints related to marriage.

However, India lags behind when it comes to laws affecting women’s pay, pension and work after having children, constraints on women starting and running a business, gender differences in property and inheritance.