Chennai: While Indian working women have freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work, and less constraints related to marriage, laws related to women’s pay and work after childbirth are areas where the government needs to work, finds a study by the World Bank.
The Women, Business and the Law 2024 (WBL 2024) by the World Bank identifies barriers for women’s economic empowerment in areas like legal rights, policy instruments designed to support the implementation of these rights, and how these rights are realized in practice.
When it comes to constraints on freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work, and constraints related to marriage, India gets a perfect score.
When it comes to laws affecting women's pay, laws affecting women's work after having children, constraints on women starting and running a business, gender differences in property and inheritance, and laws affecting the size of a woman's pension, India could consider reforms to improve legal equality for women, said the study.
One of the lowest scores for India is on the indicator measuring laws affecting women’s pay. To improve on the pay indicator, India may wish to consider mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value, allowing women to work at night in the same way as men, and allowing women to work in an industrial job in the same way as men.
India also has a low score on measuring supportive frameworks affecting childcare. In order to improve childcare, India may wish to consider establishing a publicly available registry or database of childcare providers, establishing a clearly outlined application procedure to request financial support from the government for childcare services by parents and by non-state childcare providers, and publishing reports on the quality of childcare services at least within every three years.
Further, one of the lowest scores for India is on expert opinions on women's work after having children.
