Even though there have been improvements in the region, there still are several important debts.

According to the Decent Work and Gender Equality Report, for the first time ever, more than half of Latin-American women who are within employment age are part of the region’s workforce. This report was created by the five United Nations agencies together (ILO, CEPAL, FAO, PNUD and UN women).

The report shows that working women are mostly urban and seven over ten are adults in reproductive age.  Almost 54% of the women in the economically active population have reached over 10 years or more of formal education (the same amount of years can only be seen in 40, 4% of men). Around 22.8% have either complete or incomplete college education (which only comprehends the 16.2% of the male population).

Despite the pay gap has been reduced, there still is a lot of work to do on this matter. Women continue to receive lower salaries than men. In addition, the main source of employment for Latin-American women remains being domestic work, a sector that shows an informality of 70%. Consequently it is necessary to keep on working both in quantitative as well as qualitative aspects of this matter.

A better educational quality diminishes the unemployment risk, increases employability and relative earnings and brings relief to a gender difference that must disappear.

As ILO’s Regional Manager, Elizabeth Tinoco establishes: “the incorporation of women to employment under equal conditions is essential to deal with endemic problems in Latin American, such as poverty and inequality, and to open the way towards sustainable economic growth”.