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3. WBL: Enforcement Perceptions, Assets, Public authorities enforce existing legislation granting equal inheritance rights to male and female surviving spouses

WBL: Enforcement Perceptions, Assets, Public authorities enforce existing legislation granting equal inheritance rights to male and female surviving spouses

The indicator assesses expert perceptions of the extent to which public authorities enforce existing legislation granting equal inheritance rights to male and female surviving spouses in practice. Experts rate enforcement on a five-point Likert scale (0–4), where 0 indicates no enforcement of protective or beneficial laws, no upholding of women’s rights, or full enforcement of restrictive laws, and 4 indicates full enforcement of protective or beneficial laws, the full upholding of women’s rights, or no enforcement of restrictive laws.

Enforcement perceptions indicator-level scores are calculated by taking the median value of individual expert responses on the five-point Likert scale (0–4) for each indicator at the economy level. For indicators that correspond to a partially scored legal frameworks indicator, a weighted approach is applied, as described in detail in the enforcement perceptions scoring sections in the relevant topic chapters.

For details, please refer to the WBL Methodology Handbook (link: https://wbl.worldbank.org/content/dam/sites/wbl/documents/2026/WBL-Methodology-Handbook-2026-FINAL.pdf).