In an imaginary and egalitarian planet, women would receive 50% of all labor income, says the World Inequality Report 2022. But it is not like that, just a little more than a third is for female workers. On a global level, women with a economic activity receive 34% of the money generated by the work, the mens, 66 percent. And in this country, the distribution is 33 and 67%, respectively.
The income disparity It continues to be significant due to salary differences, but also due to “inequalities in types of occupation”, indicates the report by the World Inequality Lab, a center dedicated to the study of inequality at a global level, financed mainly by the European Research Council.
“In 30 years, progress has been very slow globally.” In 1990 the workers obtained the 30% of earned income, that is to say, that progress at a global level has been barely 4 percentage points in three decades. And, according to institutions such as UN-Women, the covid-19 pandemic caused a 10-year setback in the progress made.
Women continue to have difficulties in accessing “good jobs and good salaries”, and this explains “why, despite some progress at the regional and national levels, the women’s labor share in income has not grown faster.
Since 1990, women “have outperformed men in educational attainment in many countries.” Despite this, there continues to be an “underrepresentation of women at the top of the salary distribution”.
A tour of the world situation
The report draws attention to the fact that, “in the early 2020s, women of working age they still earn about half as much as men.” There are mainly two reasons for this: “Their labor force participation compared to men, on the one hand, and the gender earnings ratio, on the other hand.”
According to time use surveys, women spend many more hours than men in unpaid care work. In Mexico, women absorb almost 75% of household chores, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).
“It is likely that this increased burden of unpaid care work prevent women from participating in the labor market and, when they do work, prevent them from accessing well-paid jobs”. Having a paid job and an unpaid job at the same time is not sustainable, women’s activities “increase substantially” and that is unfair, the report highlights.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, Barbados It is the country with the greatest equality, since they obtain 42% of the labor income generated at the national level. Not necessarily the most prominent or hegemonic economies turn out to be the ones that offer the best working conditions for women. In the region and on the continent, Venezuela is the one that grants the longest paid maternity leave, with 26 weeks, followed by Cuba, with 18.
In Latin America alone, “the female labor participation average income is located at 35%”. Guatemala is where there is greater inequality, since female workers earn 26% of the total. “In the two most populous countries, Brazil and Mexico, the shares are 38% and 33%, respectively.”
Another example of the complexities of economics and women’s rights is moldova, a small former Soviet country located in Eastern Europe. There, the participation of women in labor income is 41% of the total generated.
In USA the distribution is 38% for women and 62% for men. Meanwhile in Russia the ratio is 40-60.
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa “exhibit low levels of female labor participation in income, with an average of 15 percent. The country with the worst status for women in this regard is Oman, where men keep 90% of labor earnings and women barely 10%.