The WORLD Policy Analysis Center has collected and analyzed information on rights, laws, and policies in all 193 UN member states in the areas of education, health, adult labor and working conditions, child labor, child marriage, care, poverty, constitutional rights, discrimination, freedom from violence, childhood, gender, migration, sexual orientation and gender identity, aging, and disability. Beginning in 2000, we worked to develop the first globally comparative and comprehensive data on labor protections that matter to work and family. Over the course of two decades, it became the most comprehensive independent source for detailed data on whether constitutional rights, laws, and policies lay the foundation for equal opportunities and where gaps remain. Our approach to constructing data has been honed from more than two decades of constructing quantitatively comparable measures of constitutional rights, laws, and working with stakeholders at all levels to effectively use this data, as detailed in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.
The selection of the data sources used by the WORLD Policy Analysis Center was based on the following approach:
- To ensure the greatest level of accuracy and comparability across countries, we code from original constitutions rights, laws, or policies (primary sources) rather than secondary summaries or policy descriptions.
- Primary sources allow for more accurate coding across countries, particularly in complex legal areas.
- Working with primary sources also allows us to provide excerpts or links to actual legal documents for those interested in passing new laws or creating reform in their countries.
In selecting the rights, laws, and policies included in our databases, priority was given to those that are supported in three ways:
- With research evidence demonstrating their importance to human health, development, well-being, or equity in a variety of geographic, social, and economic circumstances;
- With widespread global consensus on their value; and/or
- Where building data or research evidence could help answer decisionmaker questions and advance equal opportunities.
Coding Frameworks
Coding frameworks were developed to capture information in a systematic way. Our guiding principle was to ensure that frameworks captured the key features of laws that matter to equal opportunities, recognizing the wide range of approaches that countries might take in trying to achieve the same end goal. To develop approaches for analysis in each area, we used the following approach:
- The foundation for our framework was based on existing research evidence and international agreement on key features of rights, laws, and policies that matter to equal opportunities. These include whether protections are comprehensive, whether they reach everyone, and where they are designed in a way to support effective implementation and enforcement.
- After determining an initial set of key features, the research team reviewed text from 20 to 30 countries selected to show a breadth of potential approaches to develop a set of categories according to which these features could be systematically coded and compared. Special attention was paid to ensuring that the full diversity of approaches was considered without a priori assumptions about what might work best.
- Once we have a viable framework, we often seek feedback from civil society and researchers working in these areas to ensure the questions we are asking will provide the critical answers needed to inform policy debates.
- The coding framework was further revised and applied to an additional 10 to 20 countries to ensure its viability before being applied to all countries.
- When necessary, the coding scheme continued to be amended to reflect additional features that presented themselves upon country review; when these amendments occurred, previously coded countries were re-coded within the new framework.
- As databases continue to be updated over time, the coding framework was revisited for each update to deepen areas where new questions have arisen or add information on new approaches that countries have been taking.
Why consider constitutions?
Among the tools that governments use to regulate human rights are national and sub-national legislation, targeted programs and policies, and national constitutions. Most of the maps in our website are based on national policies and laws such as whether education is free, and whether parents can take leave for children’s health needs. The implications of these policies, if implemented and enforced properly, are clear. Constitutions typically outline a broader set of rights for which implementation mechanisms are less clear. They may need to be translated into laws and policies to have a widespread impact on citizens’ lives, however:
- Constitutions are fundamental building blocks of a nation’s government and laws. As such, they can play an important role in establishing values and rights that may be more equitable than prevailing social norms.
- Constitutions are particularly difficult to repeal or amend. Their commitments remain relatively stable and permanent even as different political parties assume power, which can help guard against attempts by governments to retreat from or weaken national human rights guarantees.
- Constitutions are typically the highest laws of a country, which means that they can be used to overturn formal legislation and policies, as well as customary and religious laws, that violate human rights.
- Constitutions often contain mechanisms for the legal enforcement of citizens’ rights. In countries around the world, such provisions have been used successfully to combat discrimination and hold governments accountable to their constitutional commitments.
For these reasons, we consider it important to provide information on countries’ constitutional provisions in addition to the commitments outlined in policies and legislation.
Why consider legislation?
Legislation is the tool that governments use to advance or impede equal opportunities at scale:
- Laws are the lever that policymakers can use to improve the situation for people living in their country.
- Even when laws are imperfectly implemented, having a law on the books is stronger than having no legislation.
- Legal guarantees provide residents with a foundation to demand better implementation and enforcement.
- Legislation provides the basis for how courts interpret rights and how regulations and monitoring bodies implement and enforce rights.
- Laws have normative value, helping to shift what behaviors or actions are seen as acceptable and what are not.
- In many cases, inequalities are not just the result of chance or social norms, but are embedded in legislation whether overtly or through seemingly neutral provisions that disproportionately affect certain groups.
Coding Process
Coding is the process by which a single coder takes a piece of information from constitutional text, legislation, policy, or other sources and translates it into a set of features that can be quantitatively analyzed, mapped, readily understood, and shared. Our coding process was the following:
- Coding was carried out independently by two coders and then compared, to minimize error.
- Whenever coding required a judgment call by the coder, the rules underlying such decisions were verified, applied consistently across countries, and captured systematically in a codebook.
Quality Assurance
Our goal is to ensure that the data we present is accurate and up-to-date. To minimize the potential for error in our data and keep it current, we take the following measures:
- Double coding: Rights, laws, and policies were coded independently by two coders, and their results compared, to reduce the potential for error or differences in interpretation.
- Verification of outliers: Nations that were outliers on particular variables were verified using additional sources whenever possible.
- Databases are periodically updated across countries in a systematic fashion according to a broad review of available sources.
Nonetheless, errors are possible due to human error, or due to mistakes or omissions in the data sources we use to build our databases. We welcome feedback on our data. If you are aware of an error or omission in our data, please contact us to report the error and provide a link to the relevant law or policy document through which the information can be verified.
Notes
Subnational Levels: Consistent with WORLD’s commitment to advancing universal coverage, all indicators reflect the minimum guaranteed level of policy-based protection available and do not include protections that are available in some localities, but not nationally.
Labor protections: Our data on work protections captures legislative language that explicitly applies to private-sector workplaces, and excludes provisions that only cover the public sector.
Educational levels: Countries structure their education systems in many different ways. When countries do not split their education systems according to pre-primary, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary, we assigned these categories based on the available information on levels of schooling to increase comparability across countries.
More detailed database specific-methodology
Each public use dataset includes a coding manual that describes the sourcing process for the database, as well as provides a description of each variable. Public use datasets and their associated documentation can be downloaded from the websites below:
Equal Futures, a non-profit organization which is pleased to be working in collaboration with WORLD to maintain and update datasets, building on WORLD’s history of providing rigorous, actionable data.
Harvard Dataverse, a research data repository that allows users to explore data files before downloading. WORLD’s collection of historical data, policy briefs, links to journal articles, and full-text legislative repositories are available here and this collection will continue to expand as Equal Futures updates existing datasets and builds new ones.
DataFirst, a research data service based at the University of Cape Town dedicated to giving open access to data from and relevant to African countries. WORLD is delighted to be partnering to provide data on countries across Africa and placing these countries in context with the rest of the world.
Zenodo, a research data repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program. This provides an additional archive location of all of the information contained on WORLD’s Harvard Dataverse.
