The World Bank published this week a report titled “Women, Business and the Law 2023” in which it shed light on the repercussions of legal gender discrimination on the choices made by women in terms of career and entrepreneurship. For this purpose, the World Bank built an index based on data collected from 190 countries around the globe, with the index embedding 35 data points that help shape women’s economic decisions during various phases of their lives including marriage and motherhood. These data points comprise, for instance, elements such as a woman’s freedom to travel and ability to open a bank account, sign contracts, or register a business, as well as the existence of laws that ban gender discrimination by employers when hiring or the layoff of pregnant working women. The 35 data points are later grouped under eight major categories, namely: “Mobility”, “Workplace”, “Pay”, “Marriage”, “Parenthood”, “Entrepreneurship”, “Assets”, and “Pension”. According to the report, the best index score is 100, which implies equal legal rights for both genders in a particular country. In this vein, fourteen countries have registered a score of 100 in the 2023 Women, Business and Law index, namely Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Nevertheless, the average global index score stood at 77.1, signifying that women generally benefit from around 77% of the legal rights enjoyed by men across the covered data points.

As far as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is concerned, the latter registered a meager score of 53.2 in the 2023 Women, Business and Law index, implying that women in the region benefit from around 53% of the legal rights of their male counterparts. It is worth noting that the MENA region saw the largest increase in its average score in the index due to reform efforts. The UAE topped the MENA region in the 2023 Women, Business and Law Index with a score of 82.5, followed by Saudi Arabia (71.3), Bahrain (68.1), and Tunisia (64.4).

Locally, the World Bank assigned Lebanon a score of 58.8 in the 2023 Women, Business and Law index, the fifth highest in the MENA region, trailing far behind the global average of 77.1. This implies that Lebanese women enjoy almost 59% of the legal rights granted to men across the 35 covered data points. Delving further into the index constituents, Lebanon registered a score of 100 in the “Mobility” category, mirroring equal gender rights in the country when it comes to a woman’s ability to choose her living location, to travel outside her home or country, and to apply for a passport. Similarly, the report revealed that Lebanon also registered a score of 100 in the “Workplace” category, 75 in the “Entrepreneurship” category, 60 in the “Marriage” category, 50 in the “Pay” category, and 40 in the “Assets” category. Conversely, Lebanon’s worst performances were in the areas related to “Pension” and “Parenthood”, where it scored 25 and 20 respectively.