The fact that there are so few women on the bench and at the bar is evidence that men have traditionally dominated the legal profession worldwide. However, there is no apparent explanation for this, and given the high number of young women who are interested in a future in law, change is undoubtedly on the horizon.
Does the fact that more women are starting their own private legal firms indicate that the glass ceiling is finally being broken? Several nations have passed legislation changes in the last ten years that significantly enhance the rights of women. A record number of nations now have laws outlawing discrimination or violence against women, and all but 32 countries now constitutionally guarantee gender equality in their constitutions. While these achievements, which are to be applauded, demonstrate that advancement is possible, proposals to remove the crucial impediments that limit women’s economic potential are rarely brought up in discussions of international and national economic policy, and there are still obstacles to women’s economic empowerment in every part of the world.
The Women and Foreign Policy program’s analysis of how women fit into foreign policy and economic development.
Nations must do more to equalize the legal playing field for women in order to tap into the economic potential of the world’s 50% female population.
This collection of case studies demonstrates the substantial and realistic benefits of ensuring all women the right to compete equally in the economy. Nothing less than the stability and general well-being of humanity are at risk.
According to a 2013 study of 86 countries (80% of the world’s population), women began to work in law globally in the 2000s. Globally, Latin America, the nations of the former Soviet Bloc, and Europe have the largest representation of women in the legal system, while India and China have the lowest.
The analysis discovered 52 countries had a representation of hired lawyers greater than 30%, which is a threshold often considered to signal considerable societal change. Beginning quickly, Uruguay and Venezuela surpassed that number by the beginning of the 1980s. While Norway, Denmark, Germany, and the United States were relative latecomers, crossing the 30% threshold at the same time, women made up at least 50% of lawyers in Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, and Romania by the mid- to late 2000s—some of the highest representation in the world. The two biggest nations in the world, China and India, both have low rates of female representation in the legal profession (5 percent in China and 20 percent in India, respectively).
These figures may not show a complete “feminization” of the legal profession, but they do show that the law is becoming more representational of the many people that make up society around the world.
However, the progress made by women in the legal profession around the world varies greatly by culture and country. Women now make up a growing percentage of the field.
