Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala

With only 32 percent of working-age women in the labor market, Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country with one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, and in the world. The rate of...

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Main Authors: Almeida, Rita K., Viollaz, Mariana
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/324211643385063814/Women-in-Paid-Employment-A-Role-for-Public-Policies-and-Social-Norms-in-Guatemala
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36920
id okr-10986-36920
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-369202022-02-04T05:10:42Z Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala Almeida, Rita K. Viollaz, Mariana FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION GENDER GENDER NORMS PUBLIC POLICY EMPLOYMENT With only 32 percent of working-age women in the labor market, Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country with one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, and in the world. The rate of female labor force participation is especially low in the poor regions of the North and the Northwest. This paper explores information from different micro data sets, including the most recent Population Census (2002 and 2018) to assess the drivers of the recent progress. Between 2002 and 2018, the female labor force participation rate increased 5.7 percentage points, from an average of 26 to 32 percent nationwide. This increase was partly explained by the drastic increases in the educational attainment of women, the reduction in fertility, and the country’s structural transformation toward services. However, a large component remains unexplained. Exploring 2018 data, the paper shows that social norms, attitudes toward women in society, and public policies are important determinants of these changes. The analysis suggests that, taken together, these factors can all become an important source of increased female labor force participation moving forward. 2022-02-03T15:25:16Z 2022-02-03T15:25:16Z 2022-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/324211643385063814/Women-in-Paid-Employment-A-Role-for-Public-Policies-and-Social-Norms-in-Guatemala http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36920 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9919 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean Guatemala
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
GENDER
GENDER NORMS
PUBLIC POLICY
EMPLOYMENT
spellingShingle FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
GENDER
GENDER NORMS
PUBLIC POLICY
EMPLOYMENT
Almeida, Rita K.
Viollaz, Mariana
Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
geographic_facet Latin America & Caribbean
Guatemala
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9919
description With only 32 percent of working-age women in the labor market, Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country with one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, and in the world. The rate of female labor force participation is especially low in the poor regions of the North and the Northwest. This paper explores information from different micro data sets, including the most recent Population Census (2002 and 2018) to assess the drivers of the recent progress. Between 2002 and 2018, the female labor force participation rate increased 5.7 percentage points, from an average of 26 to 32 percent nationwide. This increase was partly explained by the drastic increases in the educational attainment of women, the reduction in fertility, and the country’s structural transformation toward services. However, a large component remains unexplained. Exploring 2018 data, the paper shows that social norms, attitudes toward women in society, and public policies are important determinants of these changes. The analysis suggests that, taken together, these factors can all become an important source of increased female labor force participation moving forward.
format Working Paper
author Almeida, Rita K.
Viollaz, Mariana
author_facet Almeida, Rita K.
Viollaz, Mariana
author_sort Almeida, Rita K.
title Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
title_short Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
title_full Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
title_fullStr Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
title_full_unstemmed Women in Paid Employment : A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
title_sort women in paid employment : a role for public policies and social norms in guatemala
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2022
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/324211643385063814/Women-in-Paid-Employment-A-Role-for-Public-Policies-and-Social-Norms-in-Guatemala
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36920
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