Empowering women: Legal rights and economic opportunities in Africa

Hallward-Driemeier, Mary C.; Hasan, Tazeen

doi:10.1037/e547042013-001

Cited by 49 publications

(53 citation statements)

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“…Women were significantly more likely than men to give this response, and adults in high-income and upper-middle-income countries (where relatives are most likely to have an account) were significantly more likely than those in poorer countries to choose this reason. A recent study (Hallward-Driemeier and Hasan 2013) shows that lack of account ownership (and lack of personal asset accumulation) limits women's ability to pursue self-employment opportunities. Hence, although such voluntary exclusion may be linked to individual preferences or cultural norms, it may in some cases indicate a lack of awareness of financial products or lack of financial literacy more generally.…”

Section: Barriers To Financial Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries

Demirgüç-Kunt¹,

Klapper²

2013

eca

429

227

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This paper summarizes the first publicly available, user-side data set of indicators that measure how adults in 148 countries save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. We use the data to benchmark financial inclusion-the share of the population that uses formal financial services-in countries around the world, and to investigate the significant country-and individual-level variation in how adults use formal and informal financial systems to manage their day-to-day finances and plan for the future. The data show that 50 percent of adults worldwide are "banked," that is, have an account at a formal financial institution, but also that account penetration varies across countries by level of economic development and across income groups within countries. For the half of all adults around the world who remain unbanked, the paper documents reported barriers to account use, such as cost, distance, and documentation requirements, which may shed light on potential market failures and provide guidance to policymakers in shaping financial inclusion policies.

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Section: Barriers To Financial Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries

Demirgüç-Kunt¹,

Klapper²

2013

eca

429

227

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Significant contemporary evidence suggests women prefer to take their cases to the formal courts (Curran and Bonthuys 2005;Tripp 2004;Kuenyehia 2006). Recent studies show that women are more likely than men to file suits in the formal courts, particularly in family law cases, and that there has been a striking increase in the use of courts by women over time (Hammergren and Mikiku 2010;Hallward-Driemeier and Hasan 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Origins and Female HIV

Anderson¹

2018

American Economic Review

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More than one-half of all people living with HIV are women and 80 percent of all HIV-positive women in the world live in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper demonstrates that the legal origins of these formerly colonized countries significantly determine current-day female HIV rates. In particular, female HIV rates are significantly higher in common law sub-Saharan African countries compared to civil law ones. This paper explains this relationship by focusing on differences in female property rights under the two codes of law. In sub-Saharan Africa, common law is associated with weaker female marital property laws. As a result, women in these common law countries have lower bargaining power within the household and are less able to negotiate safe sex practices and are thus more vulnerable to HIV, compared to their civil law counterparts. Exploiting the fact that some ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa cross country borders with different legal systems, we are able to include ethnicity fixed effects into a regression discontinuity approach. This allows us to control for a large set of cultural, geographical, and environmental factors that could be confounding the estimates. The results of this paper are consistent with gender inequality (the “feminization” of AIDS), explaining much of its prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. (JEL I12, J15, J16, K11, K15, O15, O17)

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“…19 These frameworks impede women's ownership, use, and control of productive assets in a number of ways. For example, in an analysis of legal frameworks in Sub-Saharan Africa, Hallward-Driemeier and Hasan (2012) found that under half of all countries make specific provisions for the right of women to own land, and very few countries -particularly low-income countriesallow for the co-ownership of land.…”

Section: Savingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and Property Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Constraints and Effective Interventions

O’Sullivan¹

2017

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Empowering women: Legal rights and economic opportunities in Africa

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries

Measuring Financial Inclusion: Explaining Variation in Use of Financial Services across and within Countries

Legal Origins and Female HIV

Gender and Property Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Constraints and Effective Interventions

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