According to the agency EFE, Latin America has made “significant progress” in terms of women’s inclusion to the labour market over the past 25 years.

“The region has made a lot of progress in terms of gender equity. The most visible example is the important growth of women’s participation in labour markets, which has gone from 40% in the early 1990’s to the current 55%”, pointed out Andrew Morrison, Chief of the Gender and Diversity Division at the Inter-American Development Bank.

However, Morrison said that “it seems that women’s participation rate is starting to slowdown, and progress made over the past few years is rather small”.

Morrison also claimed that the regional wages’ gap is currently “around 20% between men and women”.

However, the regional scenery is not homogeneous. For instance, Peru and Mexico are two middle income countries with a large percentage of indigenous population. But, despite those similarities, women’s participation rate in Peru is 20 times higher than in Mexico.

“We need policies that balance domestic roles and labour opportunities”, while “enhancing women’s access to better quality jobs”.

He pointed out that the IDB itself has set the goal of increasing the number of women in high level positions within the institution up to 40%.