Wow, what a week! A few things happened this week.
First, I did transition back to the Implementation team fully and re-united with my old colleagues. In the time I was gone, the team had reviewed, finalized, and launched the Expert Opinions survey. When I came back, we had already received several responses on the survey. I spent most of the week analyzing the responses to identify key trends. Below are some of the notable insights that emerged from the survey data:
Expert Opinions Survey – Preliminary Insights
Data suggests that women have access to similar entrepreneurship opportunities as men do, in practice, across economies.
Of all the indicators, workplace had the lowest scores. About less than one-third of all respondents indicated that they agree or strongly agree that women are treated equally in the workplace as men.
For mobility, more than 60 percent of participants indicated that they agree or strongly agree that women are as mobile as men, in practice. Among the more “positive” findings for mobility was that 85% of respondents indicated that women can and do apply for passports in the same way as men in practice.
For pay, only about one-third of respondents indicated that they agree or strongly agree that women are paid equal to men in practice. The one exception to this was that about one-half of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that there are no restrictions on women working at night in practice.
There were other findings as well, but broadly speaking, these were my personal insights.
First, on average, for mobility, entrepreneurship, and assets, respondents were more likely to say that they agree or strongly agree with the statements that we presented to them about women having the same rights in practice as men.
For marriage, parenthood, and pension, respondents were only slightly more likely to say that women have the same rights as men in practice.
And finally, for workplace and pay, on net, the data was neutral to slightly disagree. More respondents appeared to indicate that they disagree or even strongly disagree that when it comes to workplace and pay, women are treated equally or have the same rights as men, in practice.
For me, this data presented one particularly compelling insight, which is that, at least at the aggregate level, there seems to be no obvious indicator where respondents have disagreed or strongly disagreed.
Other News
In an unexpected turn of events, I was offered to extend my internship into the Fall semester, which was so surprising but such great news as well! I have really enjoyed my time working across the labor and implementation teams and I still feel like there’s so much more work to do that I’m not ready to say goodbye.
I will need to work with the WBL team to figure out my new time commitment, roles, and responsibilities if I extend this internship into the Fall. But I suspect that the majority of my work will be to continue to support with data analysis and research. There’s a chance that I might be able to present these findings to the broader WBL team, which would be really cool. I might also be able to put some of these findings into a blog for the WBL team and potentially support with report writing for the upcoming WBL 2022 publication. That would be absolutely amazing! There is a lot of potential for me to grow through my engagement with the World Bank and the WBL, more specifically. I am really excited to see what these next few weeks have in store for me!