Gender inequality and related issuesremain a major global challenge, particularly for developingcountries. Despite considerable progress on gender equalityover recent decades, key gender gaps remain in endowments(health and education), in access to jobs and economicopportunities, and in voice and agency. Lack of data limitsability to assess gender gaps and measure progress towardeliminating them. Successfully addressing the incompletenessof civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systemscan help fill some of these vital data gaps. In addition,having official personal identification (ID) is an importantstepping-stone for women and girls - enabling them to accessservices, claim their entitlements as citizens, and increasetheir voice and agency through participation in voting andother politics. Global initiatives such as identificationfor development (ID4D) promote opportunities to providewomen with access to foundational documentation such asbirth certificates and expansion of other ways to establishtheir legal identity. In addition, better data resultingfrom personal identity registration will advance genderequality policy discussions and planning. This paperexamines rates of male and female registration for nationalidentities globally to identify key registration constraintsand gaps. The authors find no systematic evidence ofgender-based gaps in birth registration; rather, evidencesuggests that poverty, social exclusion, and geography mayconstrain birth registration of both males and females.Drawing on case studies and national-level data, the authorsnext examine outcomes in specific policy areas: access tofinancial services, access to social protection schemes, andinclusion in electoral roles and voting. Here, the evidencesuggests, adult women face gender-specific barriers ingetting ID, sometimes related to inability to obtainfoundational documentation such as birth certificates.
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