Toward Gender Equality: The Role of Public PolicyWorld Bank Publications, 1995 M01 1 - 75 pages World Bank Discussion Paper No. 292. Examines the anatomy of the Republic of Korea's financial reform policy since 1979 in order to place the nation's financial reform plan of 1993 in a proper context. Financial deregulation in the Republic of Korea, initiated in 1979, coincided with similar programs in South America and East Asia. The reforms were successful in spite of a mild form of financial repression and a deregulation policy that ran an erratic course. The republic moved decisively in 1993 toward a conventional type of financial liberalization by announcing a blueprint of reforms to be implemented over a five-year period ending in 1997. This paper examines the anatomy of the Korean financial reform policy since 1979 in order to place its financial reform plan of 1993 in the proper context. The report presents a conceptual framework of the Korean financial system and policies, examines interest rate reforms on various levels, and discusses changes in the credit allocation system that were undertaken in earlier phases of the reforms. The book goes on to review the rationale of the final financial reform phase, the sequencing of its various elements, and the assessment. Broad conclusions are presented. |
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access to credit access to financial access to land agricultural extension areas average Bangladesh Bardhan benefits Bolivia boys Caribbean child costs Côte d'Ivoire developing countries displaced women economic growth economic reforms educa effect employment enrollment ensure example extension services FEMALE-MALE EARNINGS fertility rates gender equality gender gap gender inequalities girls Grameen Bank health and nutrition higher highest social returns Honduras household decisionmaking household members household model household welfare human capital important improve income increase informal sector infrastructure intrahousehold investing in women Kenya Khandker labor market Latin America laws legal literacy macroeconomic male ment NGOS number of women opportunities percent policymakers poor population poverty primary private returns productivity programs projects public policy public spending reduce gender inequality returns to investments role rural South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa subsidies tend tion violence against women wage Washington well-being women farmers women workers World Bank worldwide
Popular passages
Page x - Life expectancy at birth is the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.
Page 30 - For example, a study in Tanzania shows that reducing such constraints in a community of smallholder coffee and banana growers increases household cash incomes by 10 per cent, labour productivity by 15 per cent, and capital productivity by 44 per cent (Tibaijuka, 1994).
Page 1 - Low levels of education and training, poor health and nutritional status, and limited access to resources depress women's quality of life and hinder economic efficiency and growth.
Page 7 - I am the woman who holds up the sky. The rainbow runs through my eyes. The sun makes a path to my womb. My thoughts are in the shape of clouds. But my words are yet to come.
Page vii - Persistent inequality between women and men constrains a society's productivity and, ultimately, slows its rate of economic growth. Although this problem has been generally recognized, evidence on the need for corrective action is more compelling today than ever.
Page 29 - This situation arises from convention rather than from comparative advantage. Inadequate public and community services, transport, and housing also often have an uneven effect on the way men and women spend their time and can increase the demand for goods produced at home using unpaid labor (Moser 1994). Thus, women may spend as much (or more) time on unpaid work as on market work. In some countries this unpaid work contributes as much as one-third to the economy's recorded GDP—and even more to...
Page 45 - Modifying the legal framework to eliminate discrimination and equalize opportunities for women and men is an important goal for public policy at the national and international levels. A supportive legal environment is also vital for other aspects of public policy that have a direct bearing on the opportunities available to women, such as regulations affecting the formal and informal sectors.
Page 5 - Sound economic policies and well functioning markets are essential for growth, employment and the creation of an environment in which the returns to investing in women and girls can be fully...
Page 26 - ... industrial and developing countries domestic violence and rape cause women of reproductive age to lose a significant percentage of healthy days. Domestic violence appears to be an example of how the relatively weaker bargaining power of women and the paucity of options for them outside the home can affect the intrahousehold distribution of welfare.
Page 31 - ... most women never drop out). For example, women in the former Soviet Union are fairly well educated and have high labor force participation, but they are concentrated in occupations requiring fewer skills and less vocational training than men, and, on average, they earn less than men (Fong 1993).