Around the world, women face persistent barriers in seeking to enter the labor force, attain leadership positions, and … launch businesses. Gender inequality not only prevents women from achieving their full potential and gaining economic …, policymakers face the timely challenge of ensuring that women are not left behind in the development agenda. This working paper …

This paper reviews the empirical literature on the existence and impact of gender discriminatory laws on women …'s outcomes across various domains (categories) that constitute the Women in Business and the Law measure of gender inequality …. The evidence to date suggests that there are significant negative consequences of legal gender discrimination on women …

This paper examines women's power relative to that of their husbands in 23 Sub-Saharan African countries to determine … how it affects women's health, reproductive outcomes, children's health, and children's education. The analysis uses a … novel measure of women's empowerment that is closely linked to classical theories of power, built from spouses' often …

Electrification has been shown to accelerate opportunities for women by moving them into more productive activities …. This paper investigates the causal link between electricity access and women's empowerment, using a large gender …-disaggregated data set on India. Empowerment is measured by women's decision-making ability, mobility, financial autonomy, reproductive …

Women's property ownership matters for their well-being and agency; it can also advance economic prosperity and promote … are more likely to own property than women. Within countries, gender gaps are most pronounced for groups that are already … disadvantaged, that is, the rural population and the poorest quintile. The disadvantage in property ownership experienced by women …