Description
The existence and acknowledgment of labour rights are crucial to women's economic empowerment. In order to legitimize women's labour rights, laws have to be instituted. Or do they? International pressure and social movements ensure that nation-states must adopt certain legal institutions to be considered civilized. This global cultural standard, diffused into national cultures, results in countries lower in the global hierarchy being extrinsically motivated to adopt women's labour rights policies. This study examines data on the existence of laws aimed at protecting the labour rights of women and the effects they have on women's labour outcomes. Using lagged longitudinal models, I analyze the relationship between laws and their impact on women's labour force outcomes among 64 low to middle-income countries between 2007 to 2017. Keying into World Society literature, emerging results indicate a decoupling of means from ends as well as entirely divergent outcomes dependent on regional socio-cultural factors.
