Der Hauptgrund für die chronisch niedrige Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen im Vergleich zu Männern ist die "Child Penalty". Das Phänomen beschreibt die beruflichen Nachteile, die Frauen nach der Geburt des ersten Kindes erfahren, während Männer keine Einbußen verzeichnen. Wie beeinflusst...

This Focus Note includes illustrative examples from successful initiatives around the world that demonstrate the potential of these strategies—from digital financial solutions that respect privacy concerns to data-driven approaches that challenge institutional biases. Development actors,...

Pluralistic ignorance is a social norms phenomenon in which people mistakenly believe that their personal preferences are not what most people around them support or prefer. This misalignment can lead individuals to adjust their behaviors away from their preferences. Pluralistic ignorance can...

This study is one component of broader World Bank trade facilitation assistance program provided to the government of the Kingdom of Lesotho (hereafter referred as Lesotho). This note presents key findings from the study, which focused on identifying the challenges faced by women owned, led or...

The proportion of women on the executive and supervisory boards of Germany's largest private companies has risen considerably since data collection for the DIW Women Executives Barometer began 20 years ago. While it was just over one percent on the executive boards of Germany's 200...

Gender quotas remain controversial despite evidence of their effectiveness in reducing labor-market gender inequality. We study how informational narratives about quotas affect support, and how effects depend on pre-existing causal beliefs about inequality. In a pre-registered survey experiment...

In a context of high polarisation and long-term tensions over advancing gender equality, this report examines how negotiations at the 59th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2025 achieved some key successes, and managed to hold the line on gender rights in the face of backlash. Based in...

Gender equality and economic growth have historically tended to move together yet identifying causal effects has been difficult. This paper uses data on the support for female suffrage in Switzerland in order to explore the impact of technology adoption on gender norms. We argue that the early...