The year 2022 showed rates of economic recovery, production and employment, although gender inequalities persisted, according to a report by the Center for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA).
Women reached in 2022 an activity rate that was historic for a third quarter since 2016, reaching 51.1%; however, the gap with men widened, reaching 19.3 percentage points, indicated CEPA in a study ahead of March 8, International Women’s Day.
Through the report “The 8M in economic perspective: from gender gaps as a structural challenge, to budgetary tools as a way forward (2019-2022)”, they pointed out that 2022 was marked by the sustained recovery of the economy, production and employment, with a year-on-year expansion to September 2022 of 4.9%.
As of the third quarter of 2022, young women presented an unemployment rate of 16.6% against 14.3% for men, with a gap of 2.3 points, below the average of recent years
In this framework, they pointed out that, in the labor market, by the third quarter of 2022, after two consecutive years of economic, productive and employment growth, women continue to have a lower activity rate, a higher level of unemployment, especially if they are young people, and when they access work, they do so in lower-quality jobs and in lower-income sectors.
Although the general unemployment rate registered two consecutive years of recovery, reaching values 2.6 points lower than in the Cambiemos government in 2019, unemployment for women, as of the third quarter of 2022, continues to be above the general rate.
This data is in line with historical values, where women present a rate of 7.8% against 6.5% in men.
The gap in the unemployment rate remains at levels similar to 2021, reaching 1.3 points.
On the other hand, in the case of young people, the general unemployment rate dropped considerably, standing below the average of the last 7 years, but the drop in unemployment had different rates for women and men.
As of the third quarter of 2022, young women presented an unemployment rate of 16.6% against 14.3% for men, with a gap of 2.3 points, below the average of recent years.
CEPA also analyzed that during the third quarter of 2022 a growth in informality was observed, which stood at 37.4%, 4.3 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2021.
They stated that it is women who have the greatest participation in informal jobs: in the third quarter of 2022, the informality rate for women was 39.4% and in the case of men it was 35.7 %, reaching a gap of 3.7 percentage points.
Of the people reached by Personal Assets in 2020, 34.5% correspond to women and 65.5% to men, evidencing a clear asymmetric distribution in the ownership of assets according to gender
Likewise, they analyzed the impact of the unequal distribution of care tasks, which influences the possibility of being inserted (or not) in the labor market.
The 2021 National Time Use Survey (ENUT) found that women spend an average of six and a half hours a day doing unpaid work, compared to three hours and forty minutes for male participants.
There is a gap of almost three hours (2:51) on average in care tasks, which has implications for insertion into the paid job market, where men spend an hour and a half more (1:32) per day than women, on average.
CEPA also addressed the wealth gap: women earn less, have less wealth and allocate a greater percentage of their income to pay taxes via indirect -and regressive- taxes such as VAT.
In Earnings, during the 2020 fiscal period, the affidavits filed reached 902,686 cases, of which 631,193 correspond to men (69.9%), while 271,493 belong to women (only 30.1%)
In the feminization of poverty, the overrepresentation of women in the lowest income deciles and the greater tax burden/pressure on them through indirect or consumption taxes come together.
Of the people reached by Personal Assets in 2020, 34.5% correspond to women and 65.5% to men, evidencing a clear asymmetric distribution in the ownership of assets by gender.
Of the total value of declared assets, 72% corresponded to men, while women owned the remaining 28%.
In Earnings, during the 2020 fiscal period, the affidavits filed reached 902,686 cases, of which 631,193 correspond to men (69.9%), while 271,493 belong to women (only 30.1%).
Regarding taxable income, men account for 76.2% while women barely 23.8%.
