By commemorating another year of the International Women’s Day, there are many limitations and inequalities facing gender in the Dominican Republic, among these the “wage gap.”
A recent study entitled “Advances and Challenges of the Dominican Republic in the implementation of the Beijín Action Platform”, prepared by the Center for Gender Studies (CEG) of the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (Intec), establishes that the disparity between salaries is around 18 %, while 49.4 % of women work in informal jobs, without access to social security.
If we calculate the base salary, which ranges between 18 and 30 thousand pesos starting from the scale established in the Labor Code, a man wins about 5,400 pesos more than a woman in some areas, starting from the aforementioned analysis.
The figures collected in the report by Desirée del RosarioCEG Coordinator of the Intec, reflect “structural challenges in key areas such as poverty, gender violence, political participation, as well as access to health and education.”
You can read: Inequality and poverty affect Dominican women
He stressed: “It has been as good, as the woman himself has been able to build it, because at the level of state policies, they remain unprotected.”
Inequality between men and women despite “anemic advance”
On the limitation he opined the newspaper Hoy, Ramiere Delgadillo, a specialist in gender issues of the Dominican Republic, who understands that despite the academic training that in most cases leads the sector, it is “a few” those that really play high impact roles.
“The Dominican Republic continues to face alarming figures in terms of the level of inequality suffered by women in the country, and that is reflected in that even though the registration level, for example, in universities it remains mostly feminine, does not translate that in that women who occupy an equitable position in decision charges,” said the activist.
He argued that the unevenness is not only seen in “male positions” such as technologies, but in areas that women traditionally tend to form.
“In the case of pedagogy students, where women predominate, specifying the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo that more than 500 years of foundation only one woman, she has been a governing,” said Delgadillo.
He added the space of the Dominican media, which mostly ensures are also led by men.
Although he understands that with years of struggle females in the country have made many progress, these have not been obtained in a “equitable” way.
“It is not fair that by being a woman I get less than a man, in the same position doing the same thing,” lamented the journalist.
Other problems of women in the Dominican Republic
Santa Martínez, another defender of women’s rights also questions the salary inequality between men and women in the country, based on the fact that the order that the ILO is not fulfilled, where the salaries that must be granted in a “equitable way between the two genres are established.”
“We women are fighting for rights, speaking of a code that has not been approved and within that there is a situation, and it is the elimination of hunger and the approval of a criminal code with the three causes,” said the trade unionist.
Salary gap worldwide in the last 10 years
According to a study published by the United Nations, anchored to the ILO, in Latin America, the gender wage gap, equivalent to 20% in 2015.
While ECLAC in 2021 in a similar analysis in countries such as “Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay”, the difference amounted to 22% in ages of 20 to 59 years.
