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By Rosemarie Fike and Matthew D. Mitchell
Maggie Walker was born in 1864 to a former slave. She grew up in Richmond, Va., where she sold insurance and led an organization dedicated to the economic advancement of African Americans. Believing that neither race nor gender should be a barrier to material advancement, Walker in 1903 chartered the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank to help finance Black homeownership. It was the first U.S. bank to be chartered and run by an African American woman, and it still operates today.
Walker understood that economic advancement required economic freedom, declaring in a 1912 speech [ [link removed] ]: “Let woman choose her own vocation just as man does his. Let her go into business, let her make money, let her become independent, if possible, of man.”
This International Women’s Day, let’s pause to appreciate the indispensable role that economic freedom plays in women’s progress. Indeed, were she alive today, Walker might be pleased to know that in her country and 68 others, women enjoy the same degree of economic freedom as men. That’s according to the Fraser Institute’s forthcoming “Women and Progress” report, which builds on the Economic Freedom of the World [ [link removed] ] index.
Economic freedom [ [link removed] ] refers to the degree to which people are allowed to make their own economic choices. The index measures this by accounting for government policies that either enable economic choice (by, for example, impartially protecting everyone’s right to own and use property) or limit it (through things like taxes, regulations, tariffs and manipulation of the money supply).
Not all countries permit women the same degree of economic freedom as men, so the index adjusts for women’s relative freedom of movement, freedom to work, property rights and legal status. These include considerations such as: “Can a woman get a job in the same way as a man?” “Can a woman register a business in the same way as a man?” and “Can a woman sign a contract in the same way as a man?”
The good news is that since 2020, seven additional countries have been added to the list of those that permit women the same degree of economic freedom as men. At the same time, 35 countries still permit women significantly less economic freedom. The rest—a little over a third of the 165 nations sampled—are somewhere in between.
The greatest disparities are in Sudan, Yemen, Niger, Iran and Egypt, which also have relatively low levels of economic freedom for men and women alike. The opposite is also true: Countries with the least gender disparity in economic freedom—which include most developed nations—tend to permit all people more economic freedom.
And just as Maggie Walker asserted, when women have more economic freedom, they tend to thrive.
Comparing the most economically free 25% of countries with the least free 25%, we find that economically free women are more likely to participate in the labor force, be employed and have advanced degrees. They earn more than seven times as much. They live 14 years longer, are one-thirtieth as likely to die in childbirth and are less likely to fall victim to human traffickers.
Women in the most economically free countries are more than twice as likely as those in unfree societies to have an account at a bank or other financial institution. And they are 60% more likely to develop themselves through education, training or employment.
Economic freedom empowers women to determine the course of their own lives, granting them greater independence and leaving them less vulnerable. And when women are free, men are also better off. That’s because gender gaps are typically much smaller in those places with more economic freedom for everyone.
The degree of gender disparity in economic freedom globally has steadily declined since 1970, but this is not a time to be complacent. Some 600 million women live in one of the 35 countries with the greatest disparities. Moreover, backsliding happens. Since 2020, for instance, Saudi Arabia has reintroduced several restrictions on women’s economic rights, demonstrating that the presence of economic freedom today does not guarantee it will be there tomorrow.
With a continued commitment to freedom for all—and with a few more Maggie Walkers to light the way—far more women will someday choose their own vocations, start their own businesses, make their own money and be in positions to overcome discrimination and inequality.

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