Social Development and Social Work Perspectives on Social Protection by Julie L. Drolet

Author:Julie L. Drolet [Drolet, Julie L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138345874
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Gender inequality

Gender inequality continues to be a considerable problem in the region that can compound the effects of poverty. Women suffer from inequality and discrimination. Women assume most of the workload in the family, including non-paid domestic work and child care, while they also work outside the home, often at informal jobs that are poorly paid. This situation is traditionally aggravated by the conditions and location where most women in poverty live, often in distant regions of the urban peripheries, which forces them to spend long hours traveling from home to work and back. The rapidly growing urban centers of Latin America suffer from poor quality or absent basic services, while many women are unable to access public services because their daily work shift coincides with the hours that services are offered. Many women are also victims of domestic, psychological, physical and sexual violence (Bott, Guedes, Goodwin, & Mendonza, 2013).

In 2005, there were 563 million people living in Latin America and the Caribbean (Costa, Horta, & Roldan, 2007, p. 56), and in 2012 there was an estimated population of 593 million people, including 291 million men and 301 million women (United Nations, 2013). The higher number of women, combined with the historic context of their disadvantaged position in the region, means that there is a higher rate of poverty among women, and of families composed solely of mothers and children.

According to data provided by 14 countries, 6.7% of the employed Latin American population works in the care provision sector, and three-quarters of these are employed in domestic services (ECLAC, 2012, p. 128). Women occupy 94% of the jobs associated with this sector, 71% in domestic services and 23% in educational and healthcare services (ECLAC, 2012, p. 128). The remaining 6% are men employed in domestic services or other jobs in the care sector (ECLAC, 2012, p. 128).

The scarce or weak regulation of domestic labor in all countries of the region, low salaries, low access to social protection, discrimination and precarious working conditions places many domestic workers in a deeper state of poverty, a situation that is aggravated in families where women are the heads of household, and even more seriously when older or ill people are in the family. Although it is difficult to precisely measure the portion of the population that lives with some type of disability, it is estimated that at least 12% of the Latin American and Caribbean population live with some type of disability, or approximately 66 million people (ECLAC, 2012, p. 185).

The disadvantged position of women, who are victims of oppressive relations and who usually earn less than men, even when performing the same job, is indicated by the fact that they occupy a greater proportion of jobs in the informal sector, where millions of women struggle daily for survival and sell their labor as domestic servants, temporary house cleaners or in other sectors of the informal economy, such as collectors of recyclable material. Many women are also subject to sexual exploitation.

This situation is present

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