In Latin America, “women bill” much less than men

A week after its release, the song recorded by Colombian singer Shakira and Argentine music producer Bizarrap has already received 153 million views, just on the latter’s YouTube channel.

But beyond its popularity, “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53”, gave rise to many analyzes on gender and female empowerment.

One of the stanzas that resonated the most in this sense is the one in which Shakira affirms: “Women no longer cry, women now bill.”

There is no doubt that this sentence, which the singer dedicates to her ex-husband (the Catalan soccer player Gerard Piqué), is more than fulfilled in her case, since she is one of the artists who earns the most money in the world. Her fortune is estimated at US$300 million.

However, this statement does not reflect the reality of millions of women in the world and, particularly, in Latin America.

Beyond the fact that in recent years enormous progress has been made in terms of gender, there are still great inequalities in terms of wages and employment between men and women.

The result is that poverty in Latin America is mainly female.

POVERTY

According to data from the femininity in households index of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in 2019, for every 100 men living in poor households in the region, there were 112.7 women in a similar situation, which, according to the organization, “evidences the lack of economic autonomy of women, who in the absence of other household income are more likely to be in a situation of poverty, a situation that is exacerbated in homes with a greater presence of boys and girls.”

For this index, ECLAC takes as a reference people from 20 to 59 years of age.

Although there is no subsequent aggregate data at the regional level, the country-by-country analysis that can be seen in an ECLAC report published in 2022 indicates:

“The reduction in poverty observed in 2021 did not contribute to reducing gender gaps. The femininity index of poverty only decreased in Panama, while in the other countries it remained constant or tended to increase”.

According to figures from the International Labor Organization (ILO), until 2019 the salary of women in Latin America was equivalent to 87.7% of the salary of men.

This ratio had been improving from 2013 onwards, but in the year before the coronavirus pandemic the reduction stopped and it is very possible that the next data will show a decline in the indicator, due to the negative impact of the quarantines.

According to the Government of Mexico, in the second largest economy in the region, the difference between men and women was 12.2% in 2021, while in 2018 it was 13.1%, so an improvement is observed.

In Ecuador, official statistics show that the median labor income for a man with a job was US$386.2, while for a woman with a job it was US$260.7. That is, men earned 48% more than women.

In Chile, the latest Wage and Labor Cost Index shows that the average wage per regular hour in the case of men is US$7.71 and in the case of women it is US$6.99 (10.34% of gap).

In June 2021, the Argentine government published a document in which it stated that in the country with the third largest GDP in Latin America, men earn 30% more than women in the same job and that, in informal jobs, that gap increases to 35.6%.

According to a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a compendium of 17 countries, Colombia occupies second place as one of the nations with the smallest difference in wages earned by men and women, making reference to an example of closing the wage gap in the country.

Colombia has a 4% salary difference between both genders, and is only surpassed by Belgium, which reached 3.8%. The OECD standard is 12%.

UNEMPLOYMENT

According to ECLAC, female unemployment for the year 2022 stands at 11.6%, against 7.8% in the case of men.

ACCESS TO EDUCATION

In addition, according to ECLAC, significant gender gaps persist in terms of performance and areas of training.

On average, female students perform worse in math and science during basic education, disparities that deepen in the lowest income quartiles.

In addition, in most of the countries of the region, the proportion of women graduated in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) does not exceed 40%.

UNPAID WORK

The director of the Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC, Ana Güezmes, stated on January 19, 2023 that in the region “74% of unpaid work is done by women”.

It should be noted that this concept includes domestic and care tasks that do not receive any pay.

A report published by ECLAC in 2021 indicated that the economic contribution of unpaid work is equivalent to 20% of GDP.

With information from Bloomberg