An economic shock is coming. Boosting women’s economic opportunity may be the key to overcoming it.

Executive summary

Over the next decade, approximately 1.2 billion young people will enter the global labor force, with women accounting for roughly half of this increase. This demographic shift, often described as a “youth bulge,” presents both a historic opportunity and a significant economic and social risk. If effectively absorbed into productive employment, this cohort can generate a major demographic dividend. If not, it risks exacerbating unemployment, informality, and social instability across already strained economies.

At the same time, women remain significantly underrepresented in labor markets. According to the World Bank, female labor force participation stands at around 49 percent globally, compared to 73 percent for men. Young women face even greater challenges: they are disproportionately represented among those not in employment, education, or training (or NEET). The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 27 percent of young women were not in employment, education, or training in 2023, more than double the rate for young men at 13 percent.

This report argues that women’s economic empowerment is not peripheral but central to managing the youth bulge. Countries that fail to integrate young women into the labor force will forgo substantial economic gains. Conversely, those that adopt gender-inclusive policies can unlock higher growth, greater resilience, and more inclusive development outcomes.

Drawing on global evidence and policy experience, this report identifies key constraints to women’s participation and outlines a set of policy priorities. It also situates the discussion within the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity framework, which emphasizes inclusive economic participation as a foundation of long-term prosperity.

The youth bulge: Opportunity or risk?

The concept of a youth bulge refers to a demographic structure in which a disproportionately large share of the population consists of young people transitioning into working age. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa, where, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, about 60 percent of the population is below the age of twenty-five. Similar, though less extreme, demographic dynamics are also observable in parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and South Asia. The scale and composition of this cohort are shifting at the same time. As Figure 1 shows, the number of young women aged fifteen to twenty-four worldwide is projected to remain close to 630 million through 2050, but the regional distribution changes sharply. In sub-Saharan Africa the number rises from 128 million in 2025 to 197 million in 2050, while in East and southeastern Asia it falls from 141 million to 95 million and in Europe and North America from 64 million to 56 million. The youth bulge is therefore not only a question of how many young people enter the labor market, but where, and whether the female half of each cohort is absorbed into productive employment.

From a macroeconomic perspective, a youth bulge represents a major shift in the age structure of a population. When fertility declines and the share of the working-age population relative to dependents increases, economies can benefit from what is commonly referred to as a demographic dividend. This dividend arises through several channels: an expanded labor force, increased savings rates, higher female labor force participation, and greater investment in human capital.

A National Bureau of Economic Research paper by David Bloom, David Canning, and Günther Fink provided one of the most influential frameworks for understanding this process. Their analysis shows that demographic transitions can significantly boost economic growth, but only under specific conditions. These include effective education systems, functioning labor markets, sound macroeconomic policies, and institutional capacity to absorb and productively employ a growing workforce. Put differently, demographics create an opportunity, but policy determines whether that opportunity is realized.

Historical experience illustrates both the potential and the risks associated with youth bulges. East Asia’s economic rise in the late twentieth century is often cited as a successful example of leveraging demographic change. Countries such as South Korea and Taiwan combined investments in education, export-oriented industrialization, and labor-intensive manufacturing to absorb large cohorts of young workers into productive employment. This resulted in sustained growth, rapid poverty reduction, and structural transformation.

By contrast, other regions have struggled to translate demographic pressure into economic gains. In contexts where job creation has lagged labor force growth, youth bulges have contributed to high levels of unemployment and informality. Youth also struggle to gain a foothold: According to ILO, the global youth unemployment rate is nearly three times the adult rate, reflecting the difficulty of integrating young workers into labor markets. In many developing economies, a significant share of young people are either unemployed or engaged in low-productivity informal work, meaning work that is not fully covered by formal contracts, labor regulation, or social protection. Informal work is not necessarily undesirable in itself. For many workers, especially new labor market entrants, it provides immediate income when formal jobs are unavailable and can sometimes serve as a stepping stone to more stable employment. The concern, however, is persistent informality, in which workers remain trapped in low-productivity, insecure jobs with limited prospects for upward mobility. The consequences of failing to absorb a youth bulge extend beyond economic inefficiency. In International Studies Quarterly, Henrik Urdal demonstrated that large youth cohorts, when combined with limited economic opportunities, are associated with a higher risk of social unrest and conflict. While demographic factors alone do not determine political outcomes, they can amplify existing vulnerabilities, particularly in fragile states and countries with weak institutions.

Looking ahead, the scale of the challenge is unprecedented. Africa will account for the bulk of global labor force growth over the coming decades: World Bank projections show the continent’s working-age population expanding by several hundred million by 2035, at a time when such populations are shrinking or flat across most of the rest of the world. This demographic momentum is unlikely to be reversed in the short to medium term, meaning that policy responses must focus on managing its consequences rather than altering its trajectory.

Crucially, as noted earlier, the youth bulge is not gender neutral. The composition of the incoming workforce matters as much as its size, and Figure 1 shows that young women aged fifteen to twenty-four face consistently higher levels of labor market exclusion than young men across most regions. The gap is particularly striking in MENA, where 31.9 percent of young women are not in employment, education, or training, compared with 16.1 percent of young men, while youth unemployment reaches 31.9 percent for women versus 19.1 percent for men. A similar pattern appears in South and Central Asia, where 34 percent of young women are not in employment, education, or training, compared with 15.6 percent of young men. In sub-Saharan Africa, 31.3 percent of young women are not in employment, education, or training, compared with 22.3 percent of young men. This gap persists even though the region’s youth unemployment rates are far below its NEET rates, suggesting that many young people are absorbed into informal or low-productivity work rather than counted as unemployed. With women expected to make up roughly half of new labor market entrants, their successful integration will be critical to realizing the demographic dividend. Ignoring these gender disparities risks not only limiting growth but also deepening inequality and social exclusion.

Figure 3. The percent of youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET) varies by gender and region

From the perspective of the Atlantic Council’s Prosperity and Freedom framework, the youth bulge represents a pivotal test of economic systems. Countries that succeed in expanding economic opportunity, strengthening institutions, and enabling inclusive participation will be better positioned to convert demographic pressure into long-term prosperity. Those that fail to do so risk experiencing a demographic burden rather than a dividend.

In this context, the youth bulge should be understood not as an automatic outcome but as a policy-dependent phenomenon. It creates a window of opportunity: one that is finite and requires timely, coordinated, and inclusive action to fully unlock its potential.

Why women matter for the demographic dividend

With women projected to account for roughly half of new labor market entrants over the coming decade, how fully they participate will help determine overall economic performance, making it far from a peripheral concern. Despite this, significant gender gaps persist. According to the World Bank, female labor force participation stands at approximately 49 percent globally, compared to 73 percent for men. These disparities are even more pronounced in certain regions, particularly in South Asia and MENA, where social norms, institutional barriers, and labor market structures limit women’s access to employment.

From a macroeconomic perspective, these gaps represent a substantial underutilization of human capital. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that closing gender gaps in labor force participation could increase gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 30 percent in some regions. In South Asia alone, achieving parity between male and female participation rates could raise GDP by as much as 27 percent. These figures highlight that gender inequality is not only a social issue but also a significant economic inefficiency.

Women’s participation contributes to growth through multiple, mutually reinforcing mechanisms. Increasing female labor force participation expands the effective labor supply and enhances productivity by improving the allocation of talent across sectors and occupations, directly boosting output. When women are excluded from certain professions or industries, economies fail to utilize the full range of available skills.

Evidence shows that income controlled by women is more likely to be spent on children’s education, health, and nutrition than the same income controlled by men. Women typically reinvest up to 90 percent of their earnings back into their families and communities, compared to men reinvesting 30 to 40 percent. This contributes to the accumulation of human capital, which is a key driver of long-term economic growth. Fourth, women’s participation can influence demographic dynamics, including fertility rates, which in turn affect savings behavior and dependency ratios—the proportion of non-working dependents relative to productive workers.

Bloom, Canning, and Fink emphasized that declining fertility is closely linked to increases in female labor supply, creating a virtuous cycle that supports the demographic dividend; that is, the economic gains generated when a larger share of the population enters productive working age relative to dependents. As women enter the workforce, household decisions regarding fertility, education, and savings evolve, reinforcing growth dynamics.

Historical experience further illustrates the transformative impact of women’s economic integration. In the American Economic Review, Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin documented how the expansion of women’s education, access to contraception, and changing social norms in the United States led to a “quiet revolution” in labor markets. This transformation not only increased female employment but also reshaped the structure of the economy, contributing to sustained growth.

At the microeconomic level, women’s employment is associated with increased household income diversification and reduced vulnerability to shocks. In many developing countries, women’s earnings provide a critical buffer against economic instability, particularly in situations where informal employment dominates. 

Importantly, the benefits of women’s economic participation extend beyond economic outcomes. Greater inclusion is also associated with stronger freedom across political, legal, and economic institutions—including women’s equal rights to work, own property, and run a business—and higher levels of social resilience, an insight that aligns closely with the Atlantic Council’s Prosperity and Freedom framework. Figure 2 illustrates this relationship by showing a generally positive association between countries’ Freedom Index scores and youth female labor force participation. This pattern is consistent with the council’s research, which finds that higher freedom, particularly economic and legal freedom, is associated with significantly greater economic participation and reduced barriers for women-led firms. At the upper end of the distribution, countries with high overall freedom scores such as Iceland (88.4) and the Netherlands (89.5) record youth female labor force participation rates of 83.3 percent, while Denmark (with a freedom score of 93.7) reaches 69.6 percent and Australia (90.3) 70.2 percent. By contrast, several countries with lower freedom scores display much lower participation rates, including Afghanistan, with a Freedom Index score of 19 and youth female participation of just 5.9 percent, Iraq (48; 5.6 percent), Algeria (43.2; 7.9 percent), and Yemen (27.5; 3.9 percent). The relationship is not uniform, and some lower-scoring countries such as Madagascar (49.4; 71 percent) or Niger (48.4; 64.6 percent) remain outliers, likely reflecting the prevalence of necessity-driven and informal work rather than broad-based economic inclusion. Even so, the overall pattern suggests that higher levels of freedom are generally associated with greater labor market participation among young women, reinforcing the argument that women’s economic empowerment depends not only on demographics or education but also on the institutional environment in which labor market entry takes place (see Figure 2).

Figure 4. Youth female labor force participation is higher in freer countries

However, realizing these benefits is not automatic. Structural barriers like unequal access to education, discriminatory laws, limited financial inclusion, and restrictive social norms continue to constrain women’s participation in many countries. As a result, increases in educational attainment among women have not always translated into proportional gains in employment, creating what is often referred to as the “education-employment gap.”

This disconnect underscores the importance of policy design. Expanding women’s economic opportunities requires coordinated interventions that address both supply-side and demand-side constraints. Education and skills development must be complemented by job creation, legal reforms, and supportive social policies.

The stakes are particularly high in the context of the youth bulge. Failing to integrate young women into the labor force would significantly reduce the potential size of the demographic dividend while also reinforcing existing inequalities. Conversely, policies that successfully expand women’s participation can amplify the benefits of demographic change, creating a more inclusive and dynamic growth trajectory.

The implication for policy is clear: gender inclusion is central to economic strategy, not optional. Countries that recognize this and act accordingly will be better positioned to convert demographic pressure into long-term prosperity.

The gender gap in youth labor market outcomes

Despite progress in education, young women continue to face significant barriers in the transition from education to employment. In the vast majority of countries, young women are less likely to be employed than young men and remain disproportionately represented among those not in employment, education, or training. Globally, about one in four young women is NEET, reflecting both weak labor demand and deeper structural inequalities that shape women’s access to economic opportunity from the outset of their working lives.

The unequal distribution of unpaid care work is a key factor. Women perform approximately three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men, which limits the time, mobility, and flexibility required to engage in paid employment. Social norms also remain a powerful constraint. In a 2022 UN Women study spanning twenty countries, nearly one-third of respondents (31 percent) said that men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce. These norms contribute to occupational segregation, lower labor force participation, and weaker school-to-work transitions for young women.

Importantly, these barriers are not only social but also institutional. As Figure 3 shows, the women’s economic freedom score, defined as the degree of legal equality between men and women throughout women’s working lives, varies sharply across countries. Fourteen countries score a perfect 100, including Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. By contrast, women’s economic freedom remains much lower in countries such as Yemen (26.9), Iran (31.2), Afghanistan (31.9), and Sudan (32.5). Regional averages show a similar pattern: the European Union scores 96.7, compared with South and Central Asia at 68.6 and MENA at 56.2. These gaps matter because legal restrictions on mobility, pay, entrepreneurship, inheritance, and workplace rights directly affect women’s ability to enter and remain in the labor market.

Figure 5. Women’s economic freedom scores across the world

In a VoxDev review, Rachel Heath and colleagues provided a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence, identifying childcare constraints, social norms, and labor demand as key determinants of female labor force participation. The broader literature similarly shows that education alone is not enough when women continue to face discriminatory laws, weak access to assets, and institutional barriers to employment. Together, these factors create a “double disadvantage” for young women, who face both youth-related and gender-specific barriers to economic inclusion. In this sense, the gender gap in youth labor market outcomes is not simply a reflection of household choices or market forces; it is also shaped by the legal and institutional environment that governs women’s economic agency.

Policy responses: What works?

The evidence reviewed in previous sections makes clear that the intersection of the youth bulge and gender inequality is not self-correcting. Markets alone do not resolve structural constraints such as care burdens, discriminatory norms, or unequal access to assets. As a result, targeted and coordinated public policy interventions are essential to unlock women’s economic participation at scale.

The evidence points to a clear set of policy priorities. Successful strategies typically combine multiple interventions, addressing both supply-side constraints (skills, education, mobility) and demand-side barriers (labor market structure, discrimination, job creation).

Investing in education and skills: Necessary but not sufficient

Education is widely recognized as a foundational driver of women’s economic empowerment. Expanding access to primary and secondary education has been one of the most significant global development successes of recent decades, with gender gaps in schooling narrowing substantially in many regions.

However, while educational attainment among women has increased, labor market outcomes have not improved proportionally. This highlights a critical limitation: education alone does not guarantee employment.

In Education Economics, George Psacharopoulos and Harry Patrinos estimated that each additional year of schooling raises earnings by about 9 percent on average, with consistently higher returns for women, underscoring the strong returns on education. Yet these returns depend on the availability of jobs and the alignment between skills and labor market demand.

Policy implications include:

• expanding technical and vocational education and training (TVET) linked to high-growth sectors;
• promoting women’s participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and digital skills where future job creation is concentrated; and
• strengthening school-to-work transitions through apprenticeships and employer partnerships.

Evidence shows that programs combining training with job placement services significantly outperform stand-alone training initiatives, particularly for young women. Colombia’s Jóvenes en Acción program is a well-known example. An evaluation by Orazio Attanasio, Adriana Kugler, and Costas Meghir in the American Economic Journal found especially strong effects for women, who earned about 18 percent more and had a 5-percentage-point greater probability of employment than comparable women who were not offered training.

Reducing care constraints: Unlocking labor supply

One of the most persistent and binding constraints on women’s employment is the unequal distribution of unpaid care work. According to the United Nations’ “The World’s Women 2020,” on an average day women globally spend 4.2 hours on unpaid domestic and care work compared with 1.7 hours for men, a gap that limits their availability for paid employment and directly constrains their labor market participation. Public spending on early education and childcare can ease this burden: Evidence shows that it increases women’s labor force participation and narrows gender gaps.

Public investment in childcare and care infrastructure is therefore a critical policy lever. In the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo showed that childcare provision has a substantial impact on female labor force participation in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In developing contexts, community-based childcare programs have also demonstrated strong effects on women’s employment and income.

Policy options include:

• expanding access to affordable, high-quality childcare services;
• providing subsidies or tax incentives for childcare provision; and
• supporting the development of the care economy as a source of job creation.

Importantly, childcare policies should be viewed as social policy and economic infrastructure, enabling labor market participation and productivity. The experience of Quebec provides a concrete example: The introduction of low-fee universal childcare in 1997 increased childcare enrollment and raised mothers’ employment, while generating enough additional tax revenue and decreased benefit spending to offset annual program costs.

Legal and institutional reforms: Removing structural barriers

Legal frameworks play a fundamental role in shaping women’s economic opportunities. The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2026 data show that women enjoy only 67 percent of the legal rights granted to men globally. The gap is even wider in practice. Under the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2.0 framework, which pairs each legal right with a “supportive frameworks” measure and an “expert opinions” measure, countries have on average established only 47 percent of the supportive frameworks the World Bank defines as necessary to make these rights effective, while legal experts surveyed in each economy estimate that enforcement reaches just 53 percent. Strikingly, only 4 percent of women worldwide live in countries that come close to full legal equality. These findings underscore the importance of legal and institutional reform: Formal rights matter, but so do implementation, enforcement, and the broader policy environment that allows women to exercise those rights in practice.

In American Economic Review, Marie Hyland, Simeon Djankov, and Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg showed that stronger legal gender equality is closely associated with better labor market outcomes for women. By shaping access to work, assets, mobility, and business activity, legal institutions influence not only women’s individual choices but also the broader capacity of economies to make full use of available talent.

Key reforms include:

• ensuring equal property and inheritance rights;
• removing restrictions on women’s employment and mobility;
• strengthening anti-discrimination and equal pay laws;
• improving access to legal institutions and enforcement mechanisms; and
• improving gendered law implementation.

Legal reforms are particularly important because they alter the structural conditions under which economic decisions are made, creating environments that enable participation. Rwanda provides a concrete example: Reforms to inheritance and land laws in 1999 and 2005 strengthened women’s property rights, while subsequent land tenure regularization increased women’s land access and tenure security. In the Journal of Development Economics, Daniel Ali, Klaus Deininger, and Markus Goldstein found that this regularization was associated with greater investment, especially among women. Yet legal reform does not always translate into practice, and progress across different dimensions of freedom can be uneven. Ghana illustrates this gap: despite meaningful improvements in political freedom and democratic governance, women’s property rights remain significantly constrained in practice, with customary law—which governs the vast majority of land transactions—continuing to favor male inheritance and control.

Financial inclusion and entrepreneurship: Expanding economic agency

Access to financial services is a critical enabler of women’s economic participation, yet gender gaps in financial inclusion persist. According to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2021, 78 percent of men globally had a financial account compared with 74 percent of women, while the account ownership gap in developing economies stood at 6 percentage points. At the same time, women-led businesses continue to face a substantial financing gap. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates that formal women-owned micro and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face an unmet credit need of roughly $1.7 trillion worldwide, which significantly limits their capacity to invest, grow, and generate employment.

Policies to address these gaps include:

• expanding digital financial services, including mobile banking;
• supporting microfinance and SME financing targeted at women; and
• providing business development services such as training, mentoring, and market access.

Digitalization has opened new opportunities in this area, particularly in low-income countries where traditional banking infrastructure is limited. In Kenya, for example, access to M-Pesa and Tala facilitated many women’s transition from subsistence farming to small-scale enterprise, illustrating how digital finance can expand women’s economic agency even where conventional banking access remains limited.

Addressing social norms: The hard constraint

While economic and legal reforms are necessary, they are often insufficient in the absence of changes in social norms. Norms regarding gender roles continue to restrict women’s participation in the labor market.

Heath and colleagues emphasize that social norms can remain binding even when formal barriers have been removed. For example, even when women are legally allowed to work, social expectations regarding care responsibilities or mobility might limit their participation.

Effective interventions include:

• public awareness campaigns that challenge gender stereotypes;
• exposure to female role models in leadership and employment; and
• community-based programs that engage men and local leaders.

Experimental evidence suggests that social norms can shift over time, especially when interventions are paired with visible economic opportunities for women. In India, Robert Jensen, writing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, finds that the randomized expansion of recruitment for call center and back office jobs increased girls’ educational investment and altered young women’s work and family decisions, including delaying marriage and childbearing. This points to an important policy lesson: Norm change is often more effective when women’s employment is made economically real and socially visible.

Policy integration: Combining interventions for maximum impact

A key lesson from the literature is that no single policy is sufficient. Women’s economic participation is constrained by multiple, overlapping barriers, including limited skills, care responsibilities, weak access to assets, restrictive social norms, and low labor demand. As a result, the most effective strategies tend to combine several interventions that address different constraints simultaneously rather than relying on a single policy lever. In a World Bank review of the evidence, Mayra Buvinić and Megan O’Donnell found that bundled approaches are often more successful, especially for adolescent girls and young women, when they combine training with complementary support such as childcare, mentoring, life skills, asset transfers, access to finance, or job placement. This is illustrated by the Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women program in Liberia. In a World Bank evaluation, Frank Adoho and colleagues found that the program, which combined training with employment-oriented support, led to substantial gains in both employment and earnings. They found, for example:

• training programs are more effective when combined with childcare support;
• financial inclusion initiatives are more impactful when paired with business training; and
• legal reforms are more effective when supported by enforcement and norm change.

Case studies

Bangladesh: Industrialization, female employment, and social transformation

Bangladesh provides one of the clearest examples of how structural change can expand economic opportunities for young women on a large scale. Since the 1980s, the country’s export-oriented ready-made garment sector has become one of the largest sources of formal employment for women in a low-income economy. Data from the ILO indicate that the sector employs about 4 million workers, roughly 60 percent of whom are women. As shown in Figure 4, this transformation is reflected in labor market outcomes for younger cohorts: Female youth labor force participation in Bangladesh more than doubled from 20.7 percent in 1995 to 46.5 percent in 2024. The increase was not linear, but the long-term trend is striking. Youth female labor force participation rose gradually from 20.7 percent in 1995 to 23.5 percent in 2001, accelerated after the late 2000s, and reached 46.5 percent in 2024. Over the same period, Bangladesh’s Prosperity Index score increased steadily from 41.7 in 1995 to 55 in 2024, while its women’s economic freedom score improved from 38.1 in the late 1990s to 49.4 after 2012, then largely plateaued. By contrast, its Freedom Index score remained broadly flat and even declined somewhat, from 48.6 in 1995 to 43.5 in 2024. Taken together, these trends suggest that the rise in youth female participation was driven less by broad-based gains in freedom than by strong sector-specific labor demand and gradual improvements in women’s economic rights.

The mechanisms behind this shift are well documented. The garment industry created large numbers of entry-level jobs that did not require advanced formal qualifications, reducing barriers to labor market entry for young women. Factory clustering in and around urban areas also lowered mobility constraints by concentrating jobs geographically. Most importantly, export demand created sustained demand for labor rather than a short-lived employment boom. In the Journal of Development Economics, Rachel Heath and Mushfiq Mobarak showed that exposure to garment-sector jobs in Bangladesh led girls to delay marriage and childbirth, while also increasing school enrollment and educational attainment, because households began to perceive stronger returns on girls’ education. Bangladesh also achieved the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of gender parity in education, and girls’ secondary school enrollment has exceeded that of boys. This is especially relevant in the context of the youth bulge. Employment opportunities for young women did not just raise labor force participation; they also altered family decisions and expectations in ways that supported longer-term accumulation of human capital.

A concrete example of this broader social transformation is the effect of factory expansion on girls’ schooling. Heath and Mobarak also found that when garment-sector jobs became locally available, younger girls were more likely to remain in school and older girls became more likely to work outside the home. In other words, industrialization changed both the immediate employment prospects of young women and the incentives facing the next generation. Bangladesh’s case shows that labor demand for young women can trigger wider changes in education, childbearing, and household behavior.

At the same time, Bangladesh also highlights the limits of labor market integration alone. Progress in youth female labor force participation occurred alongside only modest gains in institutional indicators, and many garment jobs remain associated with low wages, limited job security, and poor working conditions. The sector has also faced persistent criticism over workplace safety and labor rights.

Figure 6. Increased women’s economic freedom corresponds with increases in female youth labor force participation and global prosperity

Rwanda: Legal reform, property rights, and economic inclusion

Rwanda provides an example of how legal and institutional reform can create economic opportunities for young women, even in a low-income and post-conflict setting. Following the 1994 genocide, the country undertook far-reaching reforms aimed at rebuilding state institutions and expanding women’s rights.

Among the most consequential were the 1999 inheritance law, which gave daughters an equal right to inherit family property on the same terms as sons for the first time, and the 2005 Organic Land Law, which reinforced equality in land ownership and tenure security. These reforms were then supported by a nationwide land tenure regularization process.

The relevance of these reforms lies not only in women’s rights broadly defined but in how they shaped the conditions under which younger women could participate in the economy. As Figure 5 shows, the share of young women in Rwanda who were NEET declined modestly from 32.8 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2025. Over the same period, the share of young women unemployed remained relatively moderate, moving from 17.2 percent in 2005 to 18.4 percent in 2025, though it rose temporarily to 24.3 percent in 2021 before easing again. Rwanda’s economic subindex score increased substantially over these two decades, from 51.5 in 2005 to 70.4 in 2025. The legal subindex followed a different path: It improved steadily from 45.9 in 2005 to a peak of 55.9 in 2017, but has since eroded, falling back to 51.8 by 2025. The political subindex, meanwhile, was both lower and declining, moving from 40.1 in 2005 to 33.6 in 2025. Taken together, these trends suggest that Rwanda’s progress in youth female inclusion has been closely linked to gradual improvements in its economic and legal environment—particularly in terms of women’s economic freedom and investment conditions—even if the direction of causality and the role of other factors cannot be established from these data alone, and even if progress has not been linear.

Land registration is a concrete example of how these regulatory changes mattered. In rural Rwanda, where land remains a central productive asset, stronger tenure security affects women’s ability to invest, plan, and bargain within the household. In a World Bank study, Daniel Ali, Klaus Deininger, Markus Goldstein, and Eliana La Ferrara showed that land tenure regularization in Rwanda led to greater investment in soil conservation and other land improvements, with particularly strong effects for female rights holders. This matters for young women because stronger female asset ownership can improve household resilience, expand access to credit and productive activity, and alter expectations about women’s economic roles across generations.

Rwanda also illustrates the importance of political commitment for sustaining gender reform. Women’s representation in parliament has remained among the highest in the world: According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, women held 63.8 percent of seats in the lower house after the 2024 election. This does not automatically translate into full economic equality, but it helps explain why gender inclusion has remained embedded in the country’s institutional framework over time.

From the perspective of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity framework, Rwanda demonstrates that legal and economic reform can strengthen the foundations of women’s economic participation, including for younger cohorts. Figure 5 suggests that improvements in legal and economic institutions were accompanied by a gradual reduction in youth female exclusion, even if unemployment and NEET rates remained elevated and progress was uneven. Rwanda is therefore a useful example of how expanding women’s rights to property, inheritance, and legal recognition can contribute to broader economic inclusion. At the same time, the persistence of NEET rates around 30 percent shows that legal reform alone is not enough: Durable gains for young women also require stronger labor demand, better school-to-work transitions, and continued efforts to reduce the barriers that limit women’s participation in practice.

Figure 7. Legal and economic reform and youth female labor market outcomes in Rwanda, 2005-2025

Nordic countries: Comprehensive welfare systems and high female participation

The Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden—contrast with lower-income case studies because they show what women’s economic inclusion looks like when it is supported by strong institutions, extensive social investment, and consistently high levels of gender equality. Rather than relying on a single sector to absorb women into employment, these countries have built political, economic, and legal institutions that make female labor force participation broadly compatible with family life, economic security, and long-term prosperity.

As shown in Figure 6, all four countries combine high levels of freedom with exceptionally strong scores in women’s economic freedom, as well as in the economic, political, and legal dimensions most relevant to women’s participation. Denmark records a Freedom Index score of 93.7, a women’s economic freedom score of 100, an economic subindex score of 93.6, and the highest legal subindex score in the group at 90.6. Sweden also scores 100 on women’s economic freedom and records the highest political subindex score among the four at 96.9. Finland and Norway perform similarly strongly, with women’s economic freedom scores of 97.5 and 96.9, respectively. Taken together, these figures suggest that women’s economic participation in the Nordic countries is supported by a broad and coherent institutional environment rather than by isolated reforms alone.

A key feature of the Nordic model is the close integration of family policy and labor market policy. Governments provide extensive childcare services, subsidized early childhood education, generous parental leave, and flexible work arrangements. These policies reduce the opportunity cost of employment for women and help sustain labor market attachment throughout women’s working lives. This is especially important for younger women, who often face overlapping pressures related to education-to-work transitions, household formation, and childbearing.

The Nordic experience also shows that women’s employment is most sustainable when a well-functioning legal environment, political inclusion, and economic opportunity reinforce one another. In countries such as Denmark and Sweden, high women’s economic freedom is matched by strong political and legal environments, helping ensure that women are not only formally entitled to work but also able to remain in employment under supportive institutional conditions. In this sense, the Nordic countries illustrate how coordinated policy systems can produce both high female participation and broader social cohesion.

The main lesson is not that Nordic policies can be copied mechanically in other contexts, but that institutional coherence between the legal, economic, and political domains matters. Countries are more likely to sustain women’s economic participation when labor market access, care infrastructure, and legal equality are treated as mutually reinforcing parts of a broader prosperity strategy.

Figure 8. Freedom score, women’s economic freedom, and institutional strength in Nordic countries, 2025

Policy discussion: Integrating gender into youth strategies

Harnessing the youth bulge requires more than scaling generic employment programs. Evidence across regions shows that gender-neutral policies systematically underperform because they fail to address the specific constraints faced by young women: care responsibilities, safety, mobility, norms, and unequal access to assets and networks. A credible strategy must therefore be explicitly gender responsive, sequenced, and anchored in institutions that expand both economic opportunity and freedom.

From gender-neutral to gender-responsive policy design

Most national youth employment strategies prioritize skills development, entrepreneurship, and job matching without explicitly accounting for gender-specific constraints. However, evidence consistently shows that such gender-neutral approaches tend to yield lower returns for women, particularly in contexts where structural barriers—such as limited access to childcare, mobility restrictions, or safety concerns—remain unaddressed. As a result, training programs that are effective for men often generate only modest employment gains for women.

A gender-responsive policy approach therefore requires moving beyond generic program design toward targeted and adaptive interventions. This includes setting explicit participation and placement targets for young women in public programs, such as ensuring that they represent at least half of beneficiaries in training schemes, apprenticeships, and wage subsidy initiatives. It also involves adapting program delivery to better reflect women’s constraints—for example, by offering training in accessible locations, providing transportation stipends, or enabling flexible and hybrid learning formats. Crucially, effective programs tend to bundle skills development with complementary services, including childcare support, job placement assistance, and mentoring.

Evidence from impact evaluations underscores the importance of such integrated approaches. Programs that combine training with placement support and additional services have been shown to significantly outperform stand-alone interventions and, in some cases, double employment outcomes for young women.

A relevant example is India’s Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), a large-scale rural skills development program that integrates placement-linked training with targeted inclusion of women and disadvantaged groups. The program’s emphasis on job placement combined with support services has contributed to improved employment outcomes, illustrating how gender-responsive design can enhance the effectiveness of youth employment policies.

A policy roadmap: Five priority pillars

Priority 1: Scale affordable childcare and care infrastructure

Care constraints remain one of the most consistently identified barriers to women’s labor force participation across regions. Addressing this challenge requires treating childcare not merely as a social service but as a core component of economic infrastructure. Governments can play a central role by investing in public or subsidized childcare services, particularly in urban labor markets and industrial clusters where labor demand is concentrated. In parallel, policy frameworks can incentivize employer-provided childcare through tax credits or regulatory standards, while also supporting the professionalization of the care sector—thereby both reducing unpaid care burdens and generating employment opportunities.

International experience highlights the effectiveness of such approaches. In Chile, the Chile Crece Contigo system integrates childcare and early childhood services within a broader social protection framework, contributing to improved labor market participation among women. Similarly, in the Journal of Political Economy, Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber, and Kevin Milligan showed that Quebec’s universal low-cost childcare program significantly increased maternal labor supply, particularly among mothers with young children. More broadly, work by Olivetti and Petrongolo suggests that expanding access to childcare can substantially raise female labor force participation. In emerging economies, pilot programs such as community-based childcare initiatives in Latin America and South Asia have also demonstrated strong positive effects on women’s labor supply and earnings.

Priority 2: Remove legal and regulatory barriers

Legal equality is a foundational condition for economic inclusion. In many countries, women continue to face formal restrictions that limit their ability to work, own property, or start businesses. Removing these barriers requires comprehensive legal reforms, including ensuring equal rights in employment, mobility, property ownership, and inheritance, as well as enforcing anti-discrimination and equal pay legislation. Simplifying administrative procedures, such as business registration and land titling, is also critical to enabling women’s economic participation.

Cross-country evidence underscores the importance of such reforms. Data from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law report indicate that more gender-equal legal frameworks are associated with higher levels of women’s economic participation and entrepreneurship. An IMF study by Christian Gonzales and colleagues similarly found that fewer legal restrictions on women are associated with smaller gender gaps in labor force participation.

More recently, reforms in Saudi Arabia have provided a striking example of how rapid legal and regulatory changes can translate into significant labor market outcomes. Since 2018, a series of reforms under the Vision 2030 agenda—including the lifting of restrictions on women’s mobility, expanded access to employment across sectors, and anti-discrimination measures—have contributed to a sharp increase in female labor force participation. Women’s participation rose from around 20 percent in 2018 to more than 35 percent in recent years, exceeding initial policy targets. These changes were supported by complementary policies, including investments in childcare, remote work opportunities, and labor market reforms aimed at increasing flexibility. This case illustrates how coordinated legal and institutional reforms can quickly unlock women’s economic potential when embedded within a broader economic transformation strategy.

Priority 3: Align education and skills with labor demand

Expanding access to education is necessary but not sufficient to improve women’s labor market outcomes. The effectiveness of education systems depends on their alignment with labor market demand. Policies should therefore focus on scaling TVET systems linked to sectors with strong job creation potential, such as manufacturing, digital services, and the green economy. Promoting women’s participation in STEM and digital skills is particularly important in the context of structural transformation.

Equally important is strengthening the transition from education to employment through partnerships with employers, including apprenticeships and placement-linked training programs. International experience demonstrates the effectiveness of such models. Germany’s dual vocational training system, for example, combines classroom instruction with firm-based training, ensuring strong alignment between skills and labor market needs. Similar approaches are being adapted in emerging economies. For example, Morocco’s industrial training partnerships in sectors such as automotive manufacturing illustrate how targeted collaboration between government and industry can improve employment outcomes while gradually increasing women’s participation in traditionally male-dominated sectors.

While returns on education remain high, with earnings estimated 10–20 higher per additional year of schooling, these returns are significantly enhanced when training is directly linked to employment opportunities.

Priority 4: Expand financial inclusion and support women’s entrepreneurship

Access to finance is a critical enabler of women’s economic participation, particularly in contexts where self-employment and small enterprises play a central role. Yet women remain systematically excluded from formal financial systems. Addressing this gap requires expanding access to digital financial services, including mobile banking and e-wallets, while also de-risking lending to women-led SMEs through instruments such as credit guarantees and blended finance. Complementary support—including business development services, training, and market access—is also essential to ensure that financial inclusion translates into sustainable economic activity.

Innovations in financial technology have demonstrated the transformative potential of expanding financial inclusion for women.

Kenya provides one of the most compelling examples. The rapid expansion of mobile money services—particularly through the M-Pesa platform—has significantly increased access to financial services, especially for women who were previously excluded from formal banking systems. Tavneet Suri and William Jack found that access to M-Pesa lifted an estimated 2 percent of Kenyan households out of extreme poverty, with particularly strong effects for female-headed households. By reducing transaction costs, increasing financial security, and enabling more flexible income management, mobile money has facilitated women’s participation in economic activities, including small-scale entrepreneurship. Importantly, the impact of digital financial inclusion extends beyond access to payments. Mobile money has enabled women to save more securely, invest in productive activities, and better manage economic shocks. It has also supported greater labor mobility, allowing women to transition from subsistence agriculture into non-farm employment. The Kenyan case illustrates how scalable, technology-driven solutions can rapidly expand economic opportunities for women, even in low-income settings with limited traditional financial infrastructure. It also highlights the importance of complementary factors in ensuring the success of financial inclusion initiatives, as shown by Suri and Jack’s study of M-Pesa and the World Bank’s Global Findex data.

Policy 5: Shift social norms and improve safety and mobility

Even where economic and legal barriers have been reduced, social norms and safety concerns can continue to constrain women’s participation in the labor market. Addressing these issues requires sustained and multidimensional interventions. Public awareness campaigns and role model programs can help challenge entrenched gender stereotypes, while investments in safe transport, urban infrastructure, and workplace standards can reduce physical barriers to employment. Community-based approaches that engage men and local leaders are also critical to shifting social norms.

Evidence suggests that such interventions are most effective when combined with tangible economic opportunities. Egypt provides a relevant example. In recent years, both public authorities and private-sector actors have introduced initiatives aimed at addressing transportation barriers faced by women, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas. These include the development of women-only transportation options, partnerships with ride-hailing platforms to enhance safety features, and employer-supported transport services for female workers in sectors such as manufacturing and services. These interventions respond to a well-documented constraint: concerns about harassment and safety in public spaces significantly limit women’s willingness and ability to commute to work. By reducing these risks, transportation initiatives can effectively expand the set of feasible job opportunities available to women. Evidence from labor market studies in Egypt suggests that improved access to safe transportation is associated with higher female labor force participation, particularly among younger and more educated women.

More broadly, the Egyptian case illustrates that mobility is a critical, and often underestimated, dimension of women’s economic inclusion. Policies aimed at improving physical access to jobs—whether through safer public transport, employer-provided mobility solutions, or urban planning—can have effects comparable to more traditional labor market interventions. These measures are most effective when combined with broader efforts to shift social norms and expand economic opportunities, highlighting the need for integrated approaches to gender inclusion.

Sequencing and implementation

The effectiveness of gender-responsive policies depends not only on their design but on how they are sequenced and implemented. Evidence suggests that isolated interventions often yield limited results when underlying structural constraints remain unaddressed. To maximize impact, a strategic and coordinated approach is essential.

The first priority is to address the most binding constraints that directly limit women’s ability to participate in the labor market. These typically include lack of access to affordable childcare, restrictive legal frameworks, and mobility or safety barriers. Removing these constraints is a necessary precondition for any subsequent policy to be effective, as it expands the feasible set of opportunities available to women.

Once these foundational barriers have been reduced, the focus can shift to scaling interventions that facilitate entry into employment. In particular, demand-driven skills programs—designed in partnership with employers and linked to concrete job opportunities—have proven more effective than traditional training models. By aligning skills development with labor market needs, such programs help bridge the gap between education and employment, particularly for young women.

A third stage involves deepening financial inclusion and supporting transitions into entrepreneurship and formal employment. Expanding access to financial services, combined with business development support, enables women to move beyond subsistence activities and participate more fully in productive economic sectors. This is especially important where formal job creation remains limited.

Implementation also requires strong institutional coordination. Gender-inclusive employment strategies cut across multiple policy domains, including labor markets, education systems, social protection, and financial regulation. Effective delivery therefore depends on collaboration between ministries, particularly those responsible for labor, education, social affairs, and finance, as well as engagement with private-sector actors and civil society.

Finally, decentralized implementation is critical. Labor market conditions vary significantly across regions, and policies must be adapted to local contexts to be effective. Empowering regional and municipal authorities to design and implement tailored interventions can enhance responsiveness and improve outcomes, particularly in rapidly urbanizing economies.

Taken together, these elements highlight that sequencing, coordination, and adaptability are as important as policy content itself. Without careful implementation, even well-designed interventions risk falling short of their intended impact.

Metrics, accountability, and data

The effectiveness of gender-responsive policies ultimately depends on the ability of governments to measure progress, ensure accountability, and adapt interventions over time. Without robust data systems and clear performance metrics, even well-designed policies risk being poorly implemented or failing to achieve their intended impact.

A critical first step is the systematic use of gender-disaggregated indicators to track outcomes across the labor market. Key metrics include female labor force participation and employment rates—both overall and among youth—as well as NEET rates by gender, which provide insight into the extent of labor market exclusion among young women. Additional indicators, such as gender wage gaps and levels of occupational segregation, help capture the quality of employment and the degree to which women are integrated into different sectors of the economy. Access to enabling services, including childcare and financial services, should also be monitored as these are key determinants of participation.

However, measurement alone is insufficient. To be effective, these indicators must be embedded within broader policy and governance frameworks. Integrating gender-specific targets into national development strategies, labor market programs, and public budgets can strengthen accountability and ensure that gender inclusion remains a policy priority. Performance-based budgeting, in particular, offers a mechanism to align resource allocation with measurable outcomes, incentivizing institutions to deliver results.

Transparency also plays a critical role. Publicly accessible dashboards and reporting systems can help track progress over time, facilitate benchmarking across regions, and enable policymakers to identify gaps and adjust interventions accordingly. The experience of countries that have introduced mandatory reporting—such as gender pay gap disclosures—demonstrates that transparency can act as a powerful driver of change by increasing both public awareness and institutional accountability.

Finally, improving data quality and availability is essential, particularly in developing countries where gender-disaggregated labor market data remain limited. Investments in statistical capacity, labor force surveys, and administrative data systems can significantly enhance the ability of governments to design, monitor, and refine policies.

Taken together, these elements underscore that data and accountability are not merely technical tools but central components of effective policy implementation. By strengthening measurement systems and embedding accountability mechanisms, governments can ensure that gender-responsive strategies translate into tangible and sustained improvements in women’s economic participation.

Linking to the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity framework

The policy priorities outlined in this report align closely with the analytical framework developed by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center, which emphasizes the mutually reinforcing relationship between economic freedom, political freedom, and the rule of law—and their combined effect on broad-based prosperity. Within this framework, prosperity is not solely a function of economic output but the result of a broader ecosystem on both individual flourishing and shared and sustainable development.

The Freedom and Prosperity Indexes track this relationship across two dimensions. The Freedom Index measures the institutional inputs that shape a free and prosperous society—whether markets are open and competitive, whether political systems are inclusive and accountable, and whether legal systems are predictable and effectively enforced. The Prosperity Index measures the resulting outcomes: income levels, educational attainment, health, environmental quality, income equality, and the degree to which minority groups enjoy equal access to public services and opportunities.

Expanding women’s access to labor markets directly contributes to both freedom and prosperity. From a prosperity perspective, increasing female labor force participation raises the effective supply of labor, enhances productivity through better allocation of talent, and supports higher levels of income growth. At the same time, it strengthens household resilience and contributes to more diversified and dynamic economies. From the perspective of freedom, women’s economic empowerment is closely linked to individual agency. Access to employment, income, and financial resources enables women to make independent economic decisions, reducing vulnerability and expanding life choices. In this sense, labor market participation is not only an economic outcome but a key component of broader economic and social empowerment. Greater inclusion also contributes to resilience: Expanding participation broadens the tax base, strengthens the sustainability of public finances, and supports social stability by reducing exclusion and inequality. Economies that can integrate a larger share of their population into productive activity are generally better equipped to absorb shocks and sustain long-term development trajectories. These dynamics are reflected in cross-country patterns captured by the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. Countries that combine high levels of economic freedom with broad-based participation, including the integration of women into the labor force, tend to perform better in terms of growth, governance, and institutional quality. While the relationship is not purely causal, the consistency of these patterns suggests that inclusive economic systems are a key determinant of long-term prosperity.

In this context, integrating women into the labor force should not be viewed solely as a social or equity-driven objective. Rather, it constitutes a core economic strategy fully aligned with the drivers of prosperity identified in the Atlantic Council’s framework. Policies that expand women’s economic opportunities therefore contribute not only to more inclusive outcomes but to stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable economic systems.

Conclusion

The youth bulge represents a defining moment for many economies over the coming decade. With an unprecedented number of young people entering the labor force, countries face a narrow but critical window of opportunity to translate demographic change into sustained economic growth. Whether this transition results in a demographic dividend or a demographic burden will depend on both the scale of job creation and the inclusiveness of economic participation.

This report has argued that women’s economic empowerment lies at the heart of this challenge. With women accounting for roughly half of new labor market entrants, their integration into productive employment is not a secondary concern but a central determinant of economic outcomes. Failing to expand opportunities for young women would significantly constrain the potential gains from the demographic transition, reinforcing existing inequalities while limiting productivity and growth. In this scenario, countries risk experiencing a partial and fragile demographic shift in which the benefits of a growing workforce remain unrealized.

Conversely, the evidence presented demonstrates that targeted and coordinated policies can substantially improve outcomes. Countries should start by addressing barriers that limit women’s ability to participate in the labor market. Investments in education and skills, the expansion of childcare systems, legal and institutional reforms, financial inclusion strategies, and efforts to address social norms can together create an enabling environment for women’s economic participation. Crucially, the effectiveness of these policies depends not only on their design but on their sequencing, implementation, and integration within broader economic strategies.

The case studies discussed—ranging from industrial expansion in Bangladesh to legal reforms in Rwanda and social policy innovation in Nordic countries—illustrate that progress is possible across diverse contexts. While the pathways differ, a common lesson emerges: structural transformation, when combined with deliberate policy action, can significantly expand women’s economic opportunities and generate broad-based development gains.

From the perspective of the Atlantic Council’s Prosperity and Freedom framework, these dynamics take on broader significance. Expanding women’s access to economic opportunity contributes not only to higher levels of growth but also to greater individual agency and stronger institutional resilience. Inclusive labor markets are therefore not simply a social objective but a cornerstone of long-term prosperity and stability.

For policymakers, the implications are clear. Gender inclusion must be embedded at the core of youth employment strategies, supported by sustained political commitment and institutional coordination. The cost of inaction is substantial while the potential gains, from higher productivity to more resilient economies, are significant.

Ultimately, the youth bulge is not a guarantee of growth but an opportunity that must be actively realized. Countries that succeed in integrating young women into the labor force will be better positioned to harness this moment and build more inclusive, dynamic, and prosperous economies. Those that do not risk missing one of the most important development opportunities of their generation.

Caroline Perrin is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. She works as a postdoctoral researcher involved in the RE-WIRING project funded by the European Commission, and a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the London School of Economics. Her research primarily focuses on gendered policies and their impact on women’s access to economic opportunities, particularly examining representation in political, corporate, and judicial sectors across Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Perrin is a member of the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law team, where she analyzes the effects of gendered laws on female economic outcomes. She also contributes to discussions on economic policy and gender equality as an economist at the French think tank BSI Economics. Perrin holds a PhD in finance from the University of Strasbourg, where she completed her thesis titled “Gender, financial inclusion, and entrepreneurship” under the supervision of Laurent Weill, and an MSc in research in economics and finance from EM Lyon, University Lyon II, and Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon.

Jérémie Bertrand is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and an associate professor of finance and associate academic director of the grande école program in charge of the master’s program at IÉSEG School of Management in Lille, France. His research focuses on the benefits of developing a relationship between a bank and its customers (relationship lending), the consequences of trust in banks, discrimination in the credit market, and the impact of individual psychology on financial decisions. In recent years, he has published in international journals such as Economic Inquiry, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Financial Services Research, and the International Review of Law and Economics. He also works closely with the education executive on training professionals in risk management and financial decision-making. Bertrand holds a master of engineering degree from ISA Lille, a master of finance from Lille University, and a PhD in finance from Lille University in the field of banking. He received his Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches from Strasbourg University.

Nina Dannaoui-Johnson is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center.

Annie Lee is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center.

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