A new report by the World Bank Group has revealed that laws meant to guarantee women equal economic opportunities are only half enforced worldwide, leaving just four per cent of women living in economies that provide nearly full legal equality.

According to the latest edition of ‘Women, Business and the Law’, while many countries have passed laws to promote gender equality, enforcement remains weak.

On average, laws designed to support women’s full economic participation are only 50 per cent enforced. Even if fully applied, women would still enjoy barely two-thirds of the legal rights available to men.

For the first time, the report measures not only the quality of laws on the books but also how well they are implemented. Legal experts surveyed for the study said governments have made progress in passing equal opportunity laws, yet economies have in place fewer than half of the policies and services needed to enforce them.

The World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, Indermit Gill, said the gap between legislation and enforcement is significant.

Gill said: “On paper, most countries are doing reasonably well: the average country scores 67 out of 100 on the adequacy of laws to enable economic equality between women and men, but when it comes to enforcing the laws, the average score drops to 53. And when the systems needed to implement those rights are assessed, the adequacy score is just 47.”

He explained that these numbers reflect huge opportunity gaps and the findings of the report provide policymakers with intelligence to reverse the decline in the growth potential of developing economies.

Also, the report evaluates women’s economic participation across 10 areas, including protection from violence, access to childcare, entrepreneurship, employment protections, asset ownership and retirement security.

It identifies safety from violence as a major weakness that limits women’s ability to work consistently.

Director of the World Bank’s Policy Indicators Group, Norman Loayza, mentioned that true equality begins with safety. Whether at home, at work or in public, women deserve protection to thrive.

“Globally, we are falling short. We have only a third of the safety laws we need, and even then, enforcement is failing 80 per cent of the time,” Loayza added.