Indicators are proposed that are better able to measure women's activity in the labor market and that can serve as input for policies and programmes. The second part focuses on the indicators most commonly used in labor market analyzes in the region.
BACKGROUND
The work-related strategic goals of the Beijing Platform were seen as a necessity for the region. To sum up, there are still obstacles that hinder efforts by women to access the benefits of the development process on the same terms as men.
MOST COMMON LABOUR MARKET INDICATORS
- Workforce or economically active population
- Participation rate
- Underemployment
- Informal sector
Nor is it clear that people working in the informal sector want to work in the formal sector (Jusidman, 1993). Considering that about 25% of the female workforce in the region work in domestic service, this is.
THE LIMITATIONS OF LABOUR MARKET INDICATORS
- Gathering data
- Publication and publicizing of indicators
- Differing definitions of indicators
- Interviewers, respondents and stereotypes
- Reference period
- Under-recording
- Bias in survey questions
- Discouraged workers
- Main and secondary occupations
- Key words
- Participation in the agricultural and urban sectors
- Illegal activities
- Age limits
- Unpaid work
In some cases, it is enough for the respondent to count as employed that they have worked one day in the week prior to the survey date. Nevertheless, it is very important that this factor is taken into account in any strategy to improve women's participation in the labor market. This factor is more significant for women than for men.
In the case of women, the answer is usually that they spend most of their time on household activities, even if they also engage in activities that are considered economic for the purposes of the survey in question. In the rural sector, it is more complicated to separate activities for the market from those for home consumption. While this problem affects the entire working population, it is more pronounced among women, who generally do a major part of the work producing goods for family consumption.
THE MALE AND FEMALE LABOUR MARKETS
Participation rate
Another important change in the labor market is the increase in the educational level of the workforce, which is more pronounced among women. On the basis of the latter, they took into account the agricultural work performed by women, and for "housework" the data from the state census in 1992. If we compare the data from the state census in 1991 with the data from the agricultural census in 1992, we can see significant differences.
The under-reporting of women's participation in the rural sector is also a feature of the urban sector. In the following calculation, those whose occupation is domestic work will be treated as part of the economically active population. Combining the results of the 1991 National Population Census and the 1992 Agricultural Census, we find that 482,757 women perform domestic work for women (paid and unpaid).
Segregation and inequality in employment
That is, 32.8% of female PWA, obtained by adding together the 5.9% registered in the EAP and 26.8% registered in the economically inactive population. On the other hand, they form a minority in the category of employers and self-employed workers. One of the most notable aspects of this concentration of women in the labor market is the way they are concentrated in the service sector (see Table 12).
In all the countries of the region, women work mainly in the service sector, the ratios are in most cases more than 70%, with the only exception of Haiti, where women are concentrated in the agricultural sector. Another notable aspect of the position women occupy in the labor market is their high level of participation in domestic work. Women in the Caribbean have greater access to managerial and administrative positions than in Latin America, but they still lag behind the access men have.
Differences in wages and incomes
In the personal service sector, earnings were also low (52%) compared to the male gender. Note: In some cases, for reasons related to inconsistencies in the results of the household survey, certain changes were made to the results in order to obtain a more reliable set of statistics. 1 In some cases, the results of the household survey (labor force) carried out by the Dirección General de Estadísticas [sic], Encuestas y Censos regarding the remuneration of women in relation to men were changed due to distortion of the results in the official statistics due to missing information.
2 In the Household Survey from 1983 to 1993, Asuncion and the rest of the Area (consisting of the districts of Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Limpio, MR Alonso, Nemby, San Lorenzo, Villa Elisa and the Urban Area of Villa Hayes) were included. In all countries of the region, women are concentrated in the urban informal sector and within the informal sector they work in the lowest productivity and lowest income categories. Men, on the other hand, mainly work in the informal sector as salaried employees and employers in small establishments and as self-employed employees.
Unemployment and underemployment
Men Women Chile Men Women Colombia Men Women Costa Rica Men Women Honduras Men Women Mexico Men Women Panama Men Women Paraguay. Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Men Women.
Access to productive resources
Source: a) ECLAC/CARICOM/UNIFEM (1994), for data on Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Dominican Republic. It concludes that given the conditions of poverty that exist in Peru, it is more relevant to measure underemployment by income rather than time spent working or length of the working day. Of the economically active population of Metropolitan Lima, 78.2% of women and 76.7% of men are in this situation.
This means that the incidence of underemployment is almost identical between men and women, but women suffer more from acute underemployment as measured by earnings, which affects 55.2% of economically active women in Metropolitan Lima. The proportion of women in a position of acute and medium underemployment increased by a factor of 10.5 times between 1981 and 1993, while the proportion of women with adequate employment and in a situation of slight underemployment fell by 8.5 times . Source: Department of Statistics, Household Surveys 1981 and 1993 and Permanent Commission on the Rights of Women and Children, National report on women for the Fourth World Conference on Women, Lima, Ministry of Justice, 1994.
The cost of reproduction
PROPOSALS FOR INDICATORS FOR USE AS INPUTS INTO
TRADITIONAL LABOUR MARKET INDICATORS
- Participation rate by age and years of study
- Rate of unemployment by age and education
- Employed population by income and level of education
- Employed population by sector of economic activity
- Occupational group by income and level of education
- Distribution of the employed by seniority of position
- Earnings from work
- Participation by men and women in industrial branches
- Labour costs
Therefore, this indicator is an important input when designing policies to improve the way women participate in the labor market. Nevertheless, this indicator must be seen in the context of those showing income and level of education. This indicator should be prepared for each sector of economic activity to determine where men and women are concentrated and then examine the reasons for the differences between them.
This indicator is very important for the formulation of policies to improve women's access to the labor market in the main sectors. This indicator is an important indicator to show the reality behind the myth that women are more expensive than men because of the cost associated with maternity. To produce this indicator, it will be necessary to conduct studies comparing the cost of hiring male and female workers for an entire work cycle.
GENDER-SPECIFIC LABOUR MARKET INDICATORS
- Participation rate by number of children
- Indicators on the home
- Sharing of domestic work
- Labour force participation by civil status, age and number
The growing importance of the assembly industry makes it necessary to design indicators that reveal the employment position of women in these new sectors. The way in which women participate in the labor market is strongly influenced by the functioning of their family. Policies and programs need to take into account how the family functions, so the indicators mentioned above should be designed for household members, and in particular for male and female heads of household.
One of the reasons for wage discrimination by gender is that women's work is seen as something secondary, the purpose of which is to support the earning capacity of the head of the household. This indicator is not produced on a systematic basis, but research has been done on the issue in specialist studies. This indicator is important to identify the obstacles that women have to overcome when trying to reconcile their roles in the family.
INDICATORS FOR CATEGORIES OF LABOUR FORCE
- Own-account workers
- Visible and invisible underemployment
- Profile of female domestic workers
- Social security cover
- Type of contract and degree of labour protection
- Workforce absenteeism
- Temporary workers
- Workers without contracts
As the labor market becomes more flexible, the working conditions for men and women change. An indicator that would help to dispel the myths surrounding the issue of absenteeism among the female workforce would be an indicator that showed the number of absenteeism among men and women respectively. In the current market situation, temporary work is of great importance, especially in the agricultural sector.
This type of work is of great importance to women workers, so an indicator that breaks these workers down by gender would be of great use in designing policies aimed at these groups. The ratio of men and women workers without contracts is an indicator of poor job security. A profile of these workers would be of great use as an input when policies aimed at the informal sector are drawn up.
INDICATORS ON ACCESS TO PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES
Poverty levels
Access to productive resources
ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) (1995a), Regional Action Program for Women of Latin America and the Caribbean LC/G.1855), Santiago, Chile. El caso de Mϑxico (LC/R.1579), Santiago, Chile, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Pollack, Molly The Feminization of the Informal Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean?”, Mujer y desarrollo Series, no.
1 Rural women in Latin America and the Caribbean: results of projects and programs (LC/L.513), September 1989. 10 Domestic violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean: proposals for discussion (LC/L.690), June 1992 12. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: potential leadership in the population area (LC/L.738), May 1993.
CONCLUSIONS
- Use of existing surveys
- Working conditions
- Database