Chile leads in human development, but gender inequality persists
Even in the economy that is the best in terms of human development, according to the United Nations, the challenges of gender equality persist
The report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for the year 2018 suggests that although important advances in human development continue to be made in Latin America, the problem of gender inequality still prevails in the region. Chile, the Latin American country that best registers in the ranking of the human development index, occupying the 44th position worldwide, still falters in terms of gender equality, occupying the 72nd position.
Leer en español: Chile lídera en desarrollo humano, pero persiste la inequidad de género
According to the Index of Gender Inequality (IDG), a sociological indicator that the UNDP performs annually to know how much human development countries lose because of gender inequality, it suggests that in Latin America we are still far from equality, so let's make progress on development.
The IDG report, which is structured in reproductive health (measured from maternal mortality and the adolescent birth rate); Empowerment (measured by the percentage of women holding parliamentary seats and the rate of attendance at secondary and higher education for men and women) and economic activity (measured by the participation of men and women in the paid labor market), leaves see that even in Chile, the country with the best performance in human development in the region, there is still much work to be done.
In Chile, UNDP estimates a measure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita by sex, taking IGNORE INTO account the economically active population, the salary difference between men and women in all sectors, and the proportion of each sex in the total population.
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According to these figures, the GDP per person calculated for Chilean men is 28,809 dollars, compared to 15,137 dollars earned by a woman. The foregoing, according to the study, the gender gap in Chile is 2.3 times the gap observed in the average of countries with very high human development. Going to the point, the purchasing power of a woman would be 47 percent less than that of men.
"The data shows that there have been important advances in terms of gender equality, however, there are still pending challenges, among them is access to economic resources. Women in Chile continue to participate less than men in the labor market and receive less income than men for the same work, "said Silvia Rucks, Resident Representative of the UNDP in Chile, through a press release.
And he assured that "in fact, if we project both dimensions in the GDP per capita, the figures that are presented today estimate that the GDP per capita of women would be 47% less than the GDP per capita estimated for men".
Chile is followed by countries such as Uruguay, Barbados, Costa Rica, and Cuba, which have a similar performance in this area, although "marked differences in access to the labor market and areas of decision persist," says the UNDP of Uruguay in its report.
According to UNDP data, the Latin American country with the worst performance in the gender inequality index is Guatemala, followed by the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
LatinAmerican Post | Jorge Hernández
Translated from "Chile lídera en desarrollo humano, pero persiste la inequidad de género"
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