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McKinsey Report: Leveraging Female
Talent in Latin America Prepared for the Global Summit of Women 2005 The situation of women in Latin America presents significant challenges going forward. The more than 280 million women are still disadvantaged in many ways: · Many start working at a young age. · About 20 percent of over-15-year-olds are illiterate even though about another 20 percent of the female labor force has at least 13 years of education. · 30 percent of women are household heads. · 56 percent of women living in urban areas are employed in low-productivity sectors, with a high concentration in the informal economy –13 percent of them are employed as domestic employees– and only 3 percent are employers. · They are paid substantially less for equal work, and are allowed to work fewer hours than men. The tough reality for the average woman in Latin America is that she is either not economically active, or is driven by need to work outside her home and has to put in a “double shift” (because her male partner is absent, does not provide for her, or because his income is insufficient). Fewer than a third of women in productive age years work to better themselves or out of satisfaction and, therefore, contribute to increasing the overall productivity of the economy in a significant way. A 2005 World Economic Forum survey found that this situation stems from the lack of effective equality, economic empowerment, access to economic opportunities and gender bias. We need to change the frame of mind in our societies to grant women three key freedoms: Freedom from restricting mind-frames, freedom to use time productively and freedom to access opportunities. To realize these freedoms, what is needed is attention to detail and focus by the main actors in society. It is not only a matter of more education, because women in the region have even better formal education than men; or of enacting laws protecting women in the workplace; or of political will and infrastructure. Governments should focus on enforcing current laws and policies, adopting a zero-tolerance stance to violations in the workplace and to gender-biases present in education. Corporations should facilitate active discussion of gender issues in the workplace, force the stopping of discriminatory practices and promote mindset changes. NGOs should continue maintaining focus on the issue, channel resources in a focused and efficient way, and promote mindset changes through cross-fertilization of best practices. Lifting women work standards, which has huge impact on economic growth opportunities and in social satisfaction, is not only right and just …it is a necessary condition to be competitive in a globalized economy, where most developing economies are leveraging women talent, their most unutilized asset. If Latin America succeeds in meeting this challenge, we will become competitive; if not, we will continue to lag behind a dynamic world.
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