Gender Assessment in Benin : Women's Participation in Economic Opportunities and Decision-Making

Gender equality is important for development-it matters not only for women and girls, and boys and men but also for communities and societies-for poverty reduction and economic growth. This assessment report provides an in-depth description of the gaps between women and men in Benin regarding endowments, economic opportunities, and agency-in line with the framework proposed in the 2012 World Development Report on gender equality and development (World Bank 2012b). According to this framework, the interaction between households, markets, and institutions is critical to understanding gender-related outcomes and their associations with development. Household decisions are based on preferences, incentives, and constraints, which are largely molded by informal institutions such as social norms or networks, formal institutions, and markets. Markets, institutions, and households interact to shape women's status relative to men's with respect to agency (or the ability to act and decide on one's own life), endowments (human capital accumulation in the form of education and health), and economic opportunities (access to employment and income-generating activities)