Labor insertion problems are greater in the female populationespecially when it comes to professional jobs. In turn, the care tasks They are located in the center of the scene because they are highly feminized and represent a threat when it comes to hiring in private companies or public organizations: women are discriminated against because they concentrate this invisible and unpaid work.
This diagnosis is part of the latest Statistical Yearbook of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal), which includes a section on gender issues. The hourly underemployment and labor informality they also affect the female universe more harshly.
Although educational opportunities are often presented as essential tools when it comes to getting a better quality job, this does not seem to apply to female employment. The gender gap worsens in the case of professional work highly rated.
According to ECLAC figures for 18 countries in the region, female unemployment reaches an average of 12.8 percent of the educated population between 10 and 12 years of age. However, in the case of men that figure is 8.9 percent.
On the other hand, this gap is reduced when you have up to 5 years of study, since in that case unemployment reaches 7.2 percent of the female population and 6.2 of the male population. The figure is 3.9 points in the first case and 0.8 in the second.
So that in the least qualified and lowest paid jobs there is almost no discrimination based on sex, Unlike what happens in those of higher hierarchy. In turn, ECLAC figures show that women are better qualified than men. If the range between 25 to 59 years of age is considered, 27.7 percent of women have more than 13 years of training versus 23.5 percent of men.
care tasks
Lucía Cirmi Obón, Undersecretary for Equality Policies of the Ministry for Women, Gender and Diversity, considers that “as long as care time is poorly distributed, there will be a gap in labor participation between women and men. They employ us less because we don’t have more to care for and for the same reason we get jobs with less time”, he maintains.
Care tasks are highly feminized and unpaid household chores. Indeed, ECLAC statistics show that among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who neither study nor work, 17.4 percent of women indicate that this is because they do houseworkwhile among men that figure is reduced to 1.5 percent.
The question of age also adds vulnerability when it comes to gender issues in labor matters: female unemployment reached 22.3 percent of the population between 15 and 24 years of age, while in the case of men in the same age range of age was 17.3 percent. While, total unemployment was 10 percent among women and 7.6 percent among men, according to Cepal.
care with equality
cirmi obon also states that “there is a gap in the formality rate, because women are employed mostly in jobs related to care that are less economically valued and more informalized”. Hence the importance of enacting laws such as the Integral System of Care Policies of Argentina (Sinca), that still awaits in Congress.
Said project promotes the expansion of the offer of care services and infrastructure for the elderly, people with disabilities and early childhood and guides resources for the training of people willing to work in these roles.
He proposes the creation of a registration of care workers of different professions, because there are multiple knowledges involved. The idea is that this registry allows the professionalization of this work. And it establishes that every time the State signs agreements with community care spaces transfer wages for professional caregivers.
On the other hand, the project establishes, for registered work, a system of equal licenses where the days for men and non-pregnant people increase in a period of eight years, up to 90 days after the birth or adoption, which promotes equity in the performance of these tasks.
