This study conducted a large-scale, representative survey of social norms for female labor force participation in three governorates of Jordan. The social norms measures are disaggregated into thematic clusters, empirical and normative expectations, and interpersonal expectations within the...

Social and economic and rights are incorporated into many national constitutions, and courts in many countries are effectively and legitimately enforcing them. However, the large majority of rights rulings addresses the cost of goods and services and focuses exclusively on access. There is now...

Whether and the extent to which social norms matter for women's labor force participation has been shown to vary by context. This paper presents rigorous evidence on how these relationships hold in the case of Nepal, where female labor force participation remains among the lowest in the world....

Despite decades of economic growth, gender disparities in South Asia remain remarkably high. Although not the only one, social norms are a crucial driver of various gender outcomes, including differential economic participation. Using repeated cross-sectional data from nationally representative...

This thematic note is part of a series being developed to inform the 2024-30 WBG Gender Strategy. It provides a summary of existing evidence in applying a social norms lens to development policy, including guidance on defining, measuring, and changing social norms, with specific guidance for WBG...

This literature review summarizes the link between psychological well-being and entrepreneurial outcomes for small and medium-size enterprises in fragile, conflict, and violence-affected contexts. It identifies potentially promising, scalable psychosocial training interventions, based on...

Mental health, well-being and lasting economic outcomes are intimately connected. However, in geographies marked by fragility, conflict and violence, entrepreneurs of small and medium-size experience chronic stress and poor mental health on a regular basis. This paper describes the incremental...

This report presents a diagnostic study of barriers to private sector participation focusing on young Kuwaitis. The General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD), Kuwait Public Policy Centre (KPPC) and the World Bank's behavioral science team, the Mind,...

This paper assesses the benefits, risks, and limitations of human rights based approaches to development, which can be catalogued on the basis of the institutional mechanisms they rely on: global compliance based on international and regional treaties; the policies and programming of donors and...

A key issue with human rights is how to allocate duties correlative to rights claims. But the philosophical literature, drawing largely on naturalistic or interactional accounts of human rights, develops answers to this question that do not illuminate actual human rights problems. Charles Beitz,...