Women, Business & the Law Index 2022

Mauritius has ranked first in Africa (out of 53 African nations) with a score of 89.4 out of 100 in the latest 2022 edition of World Bank Women, Business & Law (WBL) Index.

The index analyzes laws and regulations affecting women’s economic opportunity across 190 economies using a matrix of 35 questions across eight indicators for benchmarking purposes.

The eight indicators covered (1). Mobility, (2). Workplace, (3). Pay, (4). Marriage, (5). Parenthood, (6). Entrepreneurship, (7). Assets, and (8). Pension aspects with respect to parity.

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.

Areas for Improvement

However, when it comes to constraints related to marriage, laws affecting women’s work after having children, and laws affecting the size of a woman’s pension, Mauritius could consider reforms to improve legal equality for women. For example, one of the lowest scores for Mauritius is on the indicator measuring laws affecting women’s work after having children (the WBL2022 Parenthood indicator). To improve on the Parenthood indicator, Mauritius may wish to consider making the government administer 100% of maternity leave benefits, and making paid parental leave available.

For more information on the Women, Business and the Law Index 2022, we invite you to access the full report

here.