Making Progress on Parental Benefits in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

The World Bank estimates that closing the gender gap in employment would increase long-run gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 20 percent (Pennings 2022). Realizing this achievement, however, depends not only on removing gender barriers to employment but also and most emphatically on improving the quality of women's employment. Women's labor force participation has been stagnant since 1990, at around 53 percent for women compared to 80 percent for men, with the largest gaps in lower-middle-income countries (World Bank 2023). Moreover, as noted by the World Bank's most recent gender strategy, "Women in the labor force are half as likely as men to have a full-time wage job, their jobs tend to be more vulnerable, and they earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn" (World Bank 2023). This note compiles findings from a study undertaken in two countries-one low income (Nepal) and one middle income (Argentina)-to examine the take-up of existing parental benefits and how parental benefit policies (or the lack thereof) influenced women's labor market choices, childcare responsibilities, and well-being