In the news

• India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Women, Business and Law index saw a significant improvement, climbing to 113 out of 190 countries in the latest edition of the report.
• It is intriguing to know that none of the countries globally achieved a full score in the new index, indicating pervasive gender disparities in legal rights worldwide.

About Women, Business and Law Index

• The Women, Business and Law Index is a World Bank initiative aimed at measuring how laws and regulations impact women’s economic opportunity.
•  The index provides objective and measurable benchmarks for evaluating global progress towards legal gender equality.
•  Range from 0 to 100, where 100 denotes equal legal rights for men and women.
•  The report assesses eight critical areas: mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pension.
• The 2024 edition marks the 10th iteration of the report.

India’s Performance

• Legal Rights Gap: Indian women now enjoy 60% of the legal rights granted to men, slightly below the global average of 64.2%.
• Regional Comparison: India outperformed its South Asian counterparts, where women typically have access to only 45.9% of the legal protections compared to men.
• Supportive Frameworks: India’s performance in establishing supportive frameworks fell short, with only 54.2% of the necessary frameworks in place.
• Policy Efforts: India aims to increase female labour force participation, which stood at 37% in 2022-23, significantly lower than many advanced economies.
• OECD Comparison: The female labour force participation rate in OECD countries exceeded 50% in 2022, highlighting the gap India seeks to bridge.

Try this PYQ from CSE Prelims 2015:

‘Global Financial Stability Report’ is released by which organisation?

(a) Organization for Economic Cooperation and development (OECD)

(b) World Economic Forum

(c) World Bank

(d) World trade Organization (WTO)

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