NZ one of few countries with no legal restrictions against women
The World Bank reports:
Women, Business and the Law measures legal restrictions on women’s employment and entrepreneurship by identifying gender-based legal differences. The dataset has captured 21 differences in policies for unmarried women and 26 for married women that affect women’s economic opportunities, for a total of 47 differences across five indicators (box 1.1). Of the 173 economies covered by Women, Business and the Law, 155 maintain at least one barrier for women seeking opportunities that does not exist for men; on this simple measure (figure 1.1), the majority of economies have at least one legal gender difference.
The 30 economies with ten or more legal differences are in the Middle East and North Africa (18), Sub-Saharan Africa (8), East Asia and the Pacific (2) and South Asia (2).
The 18 economies with no legal differences between women and men in the areas measured are Armenia; Canada; the Dominican Republic; Estonia; Hungary; Kosovo; Malta; Mexico; Namibia; the Netherlands; New Zealand; Peru; Puerto Rico, territory of the United States; Serbia; the Slovak Republic; South Africa; Spain and Taiwan, China
So we’re one of only 18 countries with no legal barriers for women in employment.
Some of the restrictions are:
- Need permission to get a passport – 32 countries
- Can not be head of a household – 30 countries
- Can not choose where to live – 30 countries
- Need permission to get a job – 18 countries
Others include the French law that women may not carry loads of greater than 25 kgs!