‘What kind of State? What kind of equality?’, XI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, Brasilia, Brazil, 13-16 July 2010

This report analyses the progress of States toward attaining gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), measuring it against the international goals and agreements from the last 15 years. This document highlights substantive progress made by Gender Equality Observatory for LAC in developing gender inequality indicators and statistical production systems. The first chapter draws special attention to women’s work recommending that unpaid care and domestic work be redistributed more equally between the genders. The second chapter assesses the progress made by countries’ in the application of the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), especially the status of women’s economic, physical and decision-making autonomy. One of the main achievements noted is the parity of education in the region, which was largely reached in 2005. The third chapter looks more closely at women’s paid versus unpaid work. It highlights the need for the State to redistribute unpaid work and transform social production into a collective undertaking. The last chapter contains conclusions and proposals to guarantee the rights of women in the labour market and to enable their empowerment in all decision-making spheres, amongst other things. Central to this is a solid institutional framework with sufficient regulatory capacity, in other words, the State as an entity responsible for ensuring equal opportunities.

For more information, see:
http://www.eclac.cl/mujer/conferencia/default.asp?idioma=IN