Formal savings can thus offer added security<sup>2</sup> and insulation from behavioral biases. Despite the advantages, formal savings rates remain relatively low. While approximately 60% of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa report having saved in the previous twelve months, only 34% report having some type of account at a financial institution or a mobile money platform (Demirguc-Kunt et al. 2015).<sup>3</sup> And only a quarter of adults own a savings account among the poorest 40% of households.

Despite the importance of these assets to rural and urban households, we have ample evidence to show that the distribution and control of these key assets are skewed toward men. Indeed, there are substantial gender disparities in the ownership,<sup>4</sup> control, and use of land, livestock, and savings. For example, Deere et al. (2013) rely on individual-level asset data and find that married women in Ghana own only 19% of the couple’s total wealth, and this gender asset gap is more pronounced in rural than in urban areas. The gender gap in physical assets, such as the home residence and land, is larger than the gap in financial assets, including formal and informal savings – though these types of assets make up a smaller share of overall household wealth (Deere et al. 2013).

Agarwal (1994) argues that gender differences in the ownership and control over property serve as the chief determinant of gender inequality. Addressing the gender gap in property rights can provide a key pathway toward women’s economic empowerment.

There are three principal reasons why strengthening women’s property rights could improve development outcomes. First, the gaps Overlap with the Gender Innovation Lab’s Other Thematic Areas & the World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy <!-- Start of picture text --> The World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab (GIL),<br>which tests innovative and scalable interventions to<br>address gender inequality in the economic sectors,<br>aims to deepen the global knowledge base on<br>gender and women’s economic empowerment. The<br>theme of this White Paper, property rights,<br>encompasses several topics that relate to each of<br>the other GIL focal areas. This White Paper will<br>address some of these linkages. However, other<br>areas – such as the importance of land for<br>agricultural productivity, the role of savings or in-<br><!-- End of picture text --> The World Bank’s Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), which tests innovative and scalable interventions to address gender inequality in the economic sectors, aims to deepen the global knowledge base on gender and women’s economic empowerment. The theme of this White Paper, property rights, encompasses several topics that relate to each of the other GIL focal areas. This White Paper will address some of these linkages. However, other areas – such as the importance of land for agricultural productivity, the role of savings or inkind asset transfers in fostering women’s entrepreneurship, and the nexus of social protection, women’s assets, and empowerment – will receive a deeper examination in companion White Papers on these respective topics.

Moreover, this White Paper explores a set of priority questions that directly relate to the World Bank Group's 2016-2023 Gender Strategy, which identifies the removal of barriers to women's ownership and control over assets as a key pillar.

in ownership, control, and use have implications for poverty and shared prosperity, since unequal property rights can lead to intra-household inequality in wealth. Women’s relative asset inequality can also shape their long-term wealth accumulation and poverty dynamics. As Quisumbing et al. (2011) observe, men and women enter into marriage with different asset levels (with the imbalance in favor of men on average), they accumulate assets at different rates (contributing to a widening of that imbalance), and they acquire different portfolios of assets on average. In a study of four countries

> 2 The risk of savings capture by a spouse is particularly salient for women, who tend to have lower bargaining power than men within households.

> 3 One-third of these account holders (12% of adults) in Sub-Saharan Africa has a mobile money account (Demirguc-Kunt et al. 2015).

> 4 A focus solely on ownership rights over assets would be incomplete. The literature on property rights underscores the variety of ownership and control types that can be exercised over a given asset. These “bundles of rights” can take a number of forms, including: use rights; the right to use any earnings or returns obtained from the asset; the right to manage and exclude others from using the asset; and the right to transfer a given asset (Di Gregorio et al. 2008).

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