Latin America and the Caribbean is “a pioneer in the region in terms of a gender perspective and the inclusion of gender statistics” and “a global example of all that has been achieved”said this Thursday Marco Lavagna, director of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec), at the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the presentation of the document “Breaking the statistical silence to achieve gender equality in 2030”, the director of INDEC stressed the importance of statistical data so that “they allow the different areas of government and civil society to be able to mark the course of what are the policies or actions on the different issues to follow,” he said.
“Breaking the statistical silence to achieve gender equality by 2030: application of the axis on information systems of the Montevideo Strategy for the Implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda within the framework of Sustainable Development by 2030” is the full title of the report , where data on the structural gender knots of power relations in the region were exposed.
Report: “Breaking the statistical silence to achieve gender equality by 2030”
The report was prepared with data from the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Statistical Conference of the Americas (CEA) -currently Argentina is holding its presidency-, and seeks to “break the statistical silence and make visible an inequitable distribution of power, resources, time, wealth and work”.
The presentation was held in the Libertador Hall of the Sheraton Hotel Convention Center with the presence of authorities from throughout the region, who stressed the importance of the report.
“For the CEA, the document is extremely important because it allows us to have a line of work, and for ECLAC also because it allows us to have an axis through which to coordinate actions,” said Lavagna.
To achieve gender equality in the year 2030, as detailed in the document, it is necessary to address four structural knots: the socioeconomic inequality and the persistence of poverty in the context of exclusionary growth; patriarchal, discriminatory and violent cultural patterns and the predominance of the culture of privilege.
And also the sexual division of labor and the unfair social organization of care, where it is estimated that women perform 74.5% of this work; and the concentration of power and hierarchical relations in the public sphere.
With @anaguezmesdirector of the Division for Gender Affairs of ECLAC, and @nadgasmanpresident of @INMUJERESwe present and comment on the document “Breaking the statistical silence to achieve gender equality in 2030” https://t.co/dyIACkoeCV pic.twitter.com/DQ6uT56jDx
– Marco Lavagna (@MarcoLavagna) November 10, 2022
According to the document, the constitutive structural knots of the unequal power relations in the region are “intrinsically related”, therefore, in order to make changes in these relations, a “total reorganization of that structure” must be carried out, and the statistical data They can serve to make visible and understand the forms of discrimination and inequality.
The data from the report showed that the sexual division of labor persists in the region and constitutes the main barrier to a greater participation of women in the labor market.
The region had overcome the barrier of 50% of women’s labor participation, but with the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic that figure fell back to figures similar to those of 18 years ago: currently 1 in 2 women does not participate in the labor market, while in the case of men this figure rises to 1 in 4.
The report’s data showed that the sexual division of labor persists in the region and is the main barrier to greater participation of women in the labor market
In turn, the statistics show a lower participation of women in the most productive sectors of the economy, such as the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and others.
Likewise, there is a large proportion of women who do not have their own income, since in 2020 it reached 27.8%, while that figure for men was 12%.
Poverty rates had a downward trend until 2014, but the pandemic affected poverty rates in men and women, increasing the figures to around 204 million in 2020, of which 81 million are in a situation of extreme poverty.
And beyond this great example that we set as a region, we have to move forward to exploit the full potential of time use surveys and discuss new indicators -such as time poverty- and the use of administrative records for statistical purposes.
– Marco Lavagna (@MarcoLavagna) November 10, 2022
In 2020, for every 100 men between the ages of 20 and 59 in poverty, there were 113 women in the same situation.
Regarding unpaid domestic and care work, it is estimated that women dedicate almost three times as much time as men, and in the countries that value these tasks economically, it represents 21.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the women carry out 74.5% of this work.
In turn, 1 out of 3 women is inserted in sectors of the care economy.
In 2020, for every 100 men between the ages of 20 and 59 in poverty, there were 113 women in the same situation
The figures for gender-based violence against women persist in the region, affecting 1 in 3 women; as well as the prevalence of child marriage, where 1 in 5 adolescents or girls in 2020 began an early union or married before the age of 18.
In 2000, 31.7% of management positions were held by women, and in 2019 the figure rose to 38.4%, but currently women continue to be a minority in politics, occupying 33% in 2021 .6% of the benches.
The Montevideo Strategy constitutes a roadmap to achieve the 2030 Agenda, approved within the framework of the XIII Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the perspective of gender equality, autonomy and human rights of women. women.
