Photo: Government of Argentina.

Despite the fact that in recent years the economic distances between men and women have been shortening, the gender gap continues to be a reality both globally and in Latin America in particular.

Data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) show that women participate in only 35.6% of labor income in the region.

The countries where there is a greater participation of women in total income are: Panama, Uruguay and Chile.

While the greatest inequalities are observed in Mexico and Bolivia.

Now, what is observed within each country?

What percentage of income goes to women?

This is the percentage of participation of women in the total labor income, according to the country:

  • Argentina: 36.1% (latest data, year 2021)

  • Bolivia: 32.2% (2021)

  • Brazil: 35.8% (2021).

  • Chile: 39.1% (2020)

  • Colombia: 37.3 (2021)

  • Costa Rica: 37% (2021)

  • Ecuador: 33.5% (2021)

  • El Salvador: 38.7% (2020)

  • Honduras: 34.2% (2019)

  • Mexico: 33.6% (2020)

  • Panama: 40.2% (2021)

  • Paraguay: 35.2% (2021)

  • Peru: 35.9% (2021)

  • Dominican Republic: 35.6% (2021)

  • Uruguay: 39.9% (2021)

The statistics of Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela are not taken into account, since they have not been updated since 2014.

Income by quintile and by sex in Latin America

The information available in Cepal also allows an evaluation by quintiles, that is, if people in a population are ordered from lowest to highest according to their per capita income and divided into 5 groups with the same number of people.

Each of these groups is called a quintile.

The first quintile is the poorest 20% of the population, the second quintile is the next 20% in terms of per capita income, and so on, until reaching the fifth quintile, which groups the richest 20%.

  • In Latin America, quintile 5 participates in 52.4% of the income (32.5% is for men in quintile 5 and 19.9% ​​for women in quintile 5).

  • Quintile 4 participates in 21.2% of income (13.6% in the case of men in quintile 4 and 7.7% in that of women in quintile 4).

  • Quintile 3 participates in 13.7% of the income (9.2% is for the men who make up the 3rd quintile and 4.4% for the women of that same quintile)

Source: ECLAC.

  • Quintile 2 participates in 8.7% of income (6.2% for men in quintile 2 and 2.5% for women in quintile 2).

  • Quintile 1 barely obtains 3.9% of labor income in Latin America (2.9% for men in quintile 1 and 1% for women in quintile 1).

(Taken from Bloomberg Line)