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EMPOWERING WOMEN
BOX 1.2
continued
the relative scarcity of wage employment in the region. These trends are true for both women and men. With two-thirds of the region’s population in rural areas, land rights are thus critical in determining income opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women’s rights to their assets and income are central to their ability and incentive to operate and expand their businesses. As many people work in rural areas and informally, customary law and traditional forms of justice, rather than the formal legal system, may be more relevant.
The letters of these laws seldom combine to spell out “gender discrimination.” Indeed, with the exception of some labor laws, almost all of these laws are gender blind. But the impact in practice may not be gender neutral. Genderblind business regulations presuppose that the parties can enter into contracts, move freely, access forums of economic exchange, and own property or control assets in their own name.7 This is not always equally true for men and women. Constitutional and statutory provisions do not treat women as a homogeneous group. In some cases, they treat men and women differently based purely on gender. In other cases, they recognize a gender difference upon marriage: it is most often upon marriage that women’s legal capacity and the strength of their property rights weaken. The impact of “marriage” on women’s rights is not necessarily restricted to the marriage itself—in many cases rights vary even after a marriage has ended because of divorce or the death of a spouse. An analysis of de jure rights must thus consider both gender and marital status. The areas of the law that touch on roles within families thus play a determining role in women’s and men’s economic rights. These areas include family, inheritance, land, and labor laws, the provisions of which are sometimes shaped by the principles in the country’s constitution or in international treaties the government has ratified.8 A country’s overarching legal principles are laid forth in its constitution or in international agreements, which guide how the legal system should function and identifies the values it strives to protect. Of particular importance for women is the recognition of nondiscrimination based on gender. In assessing the applicability of this principle, one must look at whether formal customary law or statutory law prevails in the key areas of family, inheritance, land, and labor laws or whether they are given formal exemption from the constitutional principle of nondiscrimination. Most assessments of the business environment do not consider family law, even though it is central in defining whether women can participate in business as equals. Family law is important to women entrepreneurs both for the subject matter it covers and for how it treats women and men. On the subject