Ian Talley of the Wall Street Journal writes that according to Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund:
An “insidious conspiracy” of laws is keeping women out of the workforce around the world, costing the global economy badly needed growth.
Ms. Legarde cites an IMF study pointing to:
Countries such as India, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt [that] are losing hundreds of billions of dollars in lost economic potential as they preserve fences against working women …
And:
Qatar, Oman and Iran topped the list at over 30% of GDP. Absent from the list was Saudi Arabia, which has one of the lowest labor-force participation rates for women in the world, according to the World Bank.
If there are obvious conclusions to be drawn here, Ms.Legarde neglected to do so.
