It is estimated that around 25% of the economic growth of the past two decades is due to women entering the labour market. However, despite the economic boom, countries in the region have a long way to go to reach the level of developed countries. Part of the problem lies in the fact that labour markets in Latin America do not work as they should: most of the jobs are informal –with no access to social security-, highly unstable, and poorly productive. Considering this situation, how relevant is the role of women?

Women represent 51.7% of the working population in Latin America. In other words, more than half of the talent the region has. But the truth is that female participation in the labour market is weak, both in terms of quantity and of quality. This is demonstrated by the Better Jobs Index, a new tool that enables us to compare the labour conditions in 17 countries in Latin America.

What is the gender gap like in countries in the region?

Data from the Better Jobs Index shows that men have more and better jobs than women. The Index shows the size of the gap per country. The largest gap can be found in Guatemala, and the smallest in Uruguay. This coincides with the general result of the index: Uruguay is the country with best jobs and Guatemala is at the bottom of the ranking.

The Better Jobs Index measures, on a scale from 0 to 100, the state of employment in countries based on two dimensions –quantity and quality-, each of them is formed by two indicators. The quantity dimension grasps how many people want to work (labour participation) and how many actually do work (occupation). The quality dimension measures the percentage of employment registered in social security (formality) and how many workers have wages that enable them to overcome poverty (living wage). Each indicator and dimension has the same weight within the Index and is measured regarding the working age population (excluding those who study full time).

In average, the difference between men and women in Latin America is 22.5 points (in Uruguay it is 15.6 points, while in Guatemala it reaches 33 points). In every country, the gender gap is larger in the quantity dimension (that measures labour participation and occupation), than in the quality dimension (that includes formality and living wage). As the data can be compared among countries as well as different periods of time, it shows that the gender gap has barely decrease 0.6% since 2010.

Given this situation, it is key to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers that limit female participation in labour markets, and design policies that reduce these gaps. For instance, countries may improve benefits offered to women (maternity leave, nursery, flexible schedules…), though the design must be adequate in order to avoid damaging women. Another key issue is for countries to provide more labour guidance for women so they may access non-traditional professions –where salaries may be higher-. Furthermore, we cannot forget the existence of major cultural barrier, which must be tackled with media campaigns and more training. Tools such as the Better Jobs Index shall help us to promote policies that may lead to better employment conditions, particularly for women.

Source:  Factor Trabajo