Legal empowerment and women’s work: Evaluating the impact of gender-reform trajectories in sub-saharan Africa
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Legal reforms promoting gender equality have expanded across Sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades, yet their effects on women’s labor market participation remain underexamined. This study assesses how gender-responsive legal reforms shape women’s labor supply by integrating the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law Index, ILOSTAT employment indicators, and DHS survey data for SSA countries from 2000 to 2023. Using a country-year panel difference-in-differences approach, the analysis exploits the staggered adoption of reforms related to workplace protections, mobility, entrepreneurship, pay equity, and parental leave. The findings indicate that countries implementing clusters of such reforms experience significant increases in female labor force participation, wage employment, and non-farm self-employment. Effects are strongest where reform adoption coincides with stronger institutions, enforcement capacity, and broader social protection systems. The results align with existing evidence on gender norms and labor regulation while providing new empirical insights. Overall, legal reforms matter, but their impact depends on coordinated regulatory and policy support.