Dominican Republic Advances In Gender Parity: What Can The Rest Of Latam Learn From It?

However, it lags behind in female empowerment, according to a global report released Tuesday by UN Women and UNDP. The two United Nations entities propose the Women's Empowerment Index (WEI) and the Global Gender Parity Index (GPI) to measure the situation of women in these two areas.

How to measure gender parity and women's empowerment?

The WEI measures the power and freedom of women to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities in the areas of health, education, labor and financial inclusion, decision-making, and violence against women. The GPI compares the situation between men and women in relation to health, education, inclusion and decision-making.

The GPI of the Dominican Republic was higher than that of the countries of the Latin American region (0.771 compared to 0.751) and that of the countries with high human development (5% higher). In the case of the WEI, its average empowerment decreased, with a value of 0.603 in 2022, indicating a delay of 5% in relation to the Latin American and Caribbean region, and 6% in relation to the group of Development countries. High Human to which the Dominican Republic belongs.

The Dominican case

The Dominican Republic performs better than the region in parity because Dominican women exhibit, for example, a higher fraction of their life expectancy at birth, compared to their peers from the rest of the countries.

In fact, the country's results exceed the regional average in 3 other indicators : Labor force participation rate, Percentage of seats held by women in local government, and Percentage of managerial positions held by women.

Also read: Gender Parity Cabinets: Equality Policy or Campaign Proposal?

The analysis of 114 countries shows that women's power and freedom to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities are still highly restricted and large gender gaps are a constant.

What is the global picture?

Globally, women are able to achieve, on average, only 60% of their full potential, as measured by the WEI, and achieve, on average, 72% of what men achieve in key dimensions of human development, according to the GPI, reflecting a gender gap of 28%.

These empowerment deficits and disparities are detrimental not only to the well-being and advancement of women, but also to human progress.

The report also highlights that less than 1% of women and girls live in countries with high levels of female empowerment and high gender equality, while more than 90% of the global female population (3.1 billion women and girls) lives in countries characterized by a large deficit in women's empowerment and a wide gender gap.

The WEI and the GPI are useful tools for those who formulate public policies, since they provide evidence on the advances and urgent policies necessary to achieve the empowerment of women and gender equality.

The indices reveal the need for comprehensive political action in health policies, equality in education, reconciliation of work and family life, and support for families, and equal participation of women.