MAURITIUS ranks 1st in Africa in World Bank’s Women, Business & Law Index

Women, Business, and the Law 2022 (WBL2022) is an index that covers 190 economies and is organised around a working woman's life cycle. In the 2022 World Bank Women, Business & Law Index, Mauritius was placed first out of 53 African countries. The Law, Women, and Business The year 2022 is the eighth in a series of annual reports that look at the laws and policies that affect women's economic opportunities in 190 countries. Eight indicators coincide with the economic decisions women make at various times of their lives and are constructed around women's encounters with the law as they begin, progress through, and terminate their careers.

 

Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension are the eight indicators as per below table. Mauritius received an 89.4 out of 100 rating from the World Bank. Mauritius' overall score was higher than the regional average in Sub-Saharan Africa (71.5):

 

 

Relative Strengths

When it comes to constraints on freedom of movement, laws affecting women's decisions to work, laws affecting women's pay, constraints on women starting and running a business, and gender differences in property and inheritance, Mauritius gets a perfect score.

 

Improvement Opportunities

Mauritius, on the other hand, should consider measures to increase legal equality for women when it comes to marriage restrictions, rules impacting women's job after having children, and regulations affecting the size of a woman's pension.

 

One of Mauritius' lowest scores, for example, is on an index that measures rules influencing women's job after having children (the WBL2022 Parenthood indicator). Mauritius may want to explore letting the government administer 100% of maternity leave benefits and providing paid parental leave to boost the Parenthood index.

 

Reforms made recently

During the previous year (October 2nd, 2020 – October 1st, 2021), no reforms were noted.