Gender Inequalities and Development in Latin America During the Twentieth Century

María Magdalena Camou, Silvana Maubrigades, Rosemary Thorp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317130208
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios de género

This book presents evidence of the evolution of the gender inequalities in Latin America during the twentieth century, using basic indicators of human development, namely education, health and the labour market. There are very few historical studies that centre on gender as the main analytical category in Latin America, so this book breaks new ground. Using case-studies from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay, the authors show that there is evidence of a correlation between economic growth and the decrease in gender inequality, but this process is also not linear. Although the activity rate of women was high at the beginning of the twentieth century, female participation in the labour market diminished, until the 1970s, when it began to increase dramatically. Since the 1970s, fertility reduction and education improvements and worsening labour market conditions are associated to the steadily increase of women participation in the labour market. By gauging the extent to which gender gaps in the formation of human capital, access to resources, quality of life and opportunities may have operated as a restriction on women's capabilities and on economic growth in the region, this book demonstrates that Latin America has lagged behind in terms of gender equality.

Chapter 1 Introduction

María Magdalena Camou Silvana Maubrigades Rosemary Thorp

Gender relations are fundamental to a study of the history of Latin American inequality. It is well-known and documented that in Latin America the problem of inequality is the worst in the world (Bértola and Ocampo 2012). Its persistence is seen by many authors as due to its deep embedding in institutions, including the informal institutions of discrimination and prejudice. To explore this, we need historical research that documents the path of inequality, its different components and their interaction over time. Recent research emphasizes the multiple dimensions of inequality – social, political, economic, cultural and geographic -and the way their interactions play out dynamically, stressing the role of power. However, so far the data base for sharp analysis of such ideas has been limited. This book begins the historical documentation of a key element of unequal power relations in any society – gender.

We wish to explore gender for the basic reason that a notion of justice and fair play must build on people’s rights and on what matters to people. Our perception of our gender is central to our identity and thereby to our sense of being ‘fairly done by’.¹ And any discriminated group has the right to have its situation reversed. Inequalities in gender can often overlap with and possibly compound other inequalities: ethnicity is a common example.

As we see here at once, an important aspect of gender is that it is a group characteristic. One’s gender defines one’s membership of a group. Inequality is not only something experienced between individuals, but it may also be inequality between groups of people – black/white, young/old, men/women. This window on inequality is particularly important, for several reasons, some of which apply more strongly to gender than others. A key element in the persistence of inequality appears to be the discrimination and prejudice which so often shape and distort institutions – and both elements apply to groups not to individuals.

The extensive literature on gender, growth and development is surveyed in section one of this introduction. In section two we present a brief overview of the history of inequality in general in Latin America. Finally we introduce the story of this book and the main contents and contributions of the research.

1.1 Overview of the Literature on Gender and Development

Much of the literature around gender focuses on what determines the position of women. That is not directly our concern in this book. In studying the history of gender, we focus specifically on its interface with growth, and then with development. As development we take a broadly accepted concept: economic growth plus expansion of capabilities.

The literature finds systematic gaps in the results for education and income and life expectancy in earlier stages of development between different groups of individuals, showing the persistence of inequality. In our research we try to systematize the information so as to gauge the extent to which gender gaps in the formation of human capital, access to resources, quality of life and opportunities may have operated as a restriction on economic growth in the region in the long run. This relation operates in both directions: inequality may have had a negative impact on growth but also the way a society is organized may put barriers to the emancipation of women.

As we are immediately indicating, while our principal concern is the interplay with development, most of the literature considers the relation with growth. This will be clear as we summarize the literature below.

Development is a complex process that involves not only economic growth but encompasses the way society is organized and the rules of the formal and informal games that shape political decisions taken to solve the problems it faces. All of this takes place in a specific territory and in a particular historical context and cultural tradition. Development studies include the analysis of the factors involved in how human communities change and achieve sustained organizational forms, production and the government considered best for human life.

Thus we emphasize a multi-disciplinary approach and a broad concept of development with capabilities at its heart. For us the capabilities approach (Sen 1999) is powerful as a tool to study gender inequalities because it focuses on the individual in his or her environment and so allows the integration of aspects related to the market and outside the market (captured with health or education indicators). This view explicitly recognizes human diversity and considers aspects like sex, race, age, ethnicity and their influence on levels of well-being (Robeyns 2003).

In general, researchers have found that most of the gender inequality measures (education, labour force participation, health, political participation and even the Gender Development Index) tend to decrease with increasing income per capita, although societies may achieve different levels of progress on different indicators (Collier 1993; Dollar and Gatti 1999; Forsythe, Korzeniewicz et al. 2000).

An area of particular interest to us as students of gender history is work suggesting that the relation between economic growth and gender equality is not linear: periods of inequality are followed by periods with increased convergence. Boserup (1970) finds that patriarchal institutional structures (macro and micro) can contribute to economic growth even though they maintain the low status of women and limit their employment opportunities. However, as markets continue to expand and labour demand continues to increase, traditional gender structures have begun to weaken. Access to employment empowers women, gives them their own earnings, facilitates the development of their human capital and so strengthens their domestic bargaining power. Economic growth, this author argues, will only promote gender equality after policy makers intervene to correct the gender biases that accompany the initial stages of development by promoting greater education among women, eliminating distortions in labour markets, and altering property laws. In the same way, because technological advances allow women to spend less time on household labour, their education will obtain higher returns and they may become competitive in the labour market and generate income for households (Goldin 2006). This leads us directly to our subthemes: education, labour force participation and externalities, especially around the family.

1.1.1 Education, Gender Inequality and Growth

A strong finding in the literature is that gender inequality in education has a direct impact on economic growth through lowering the average quality of human capital. Assuming that the amount of human capital a person has is the outcome of a combination of innate abilities and education, then gender inequality in education would lower the average level of human capital in the economy and therefore slow economic growth (Klasen 2002). Further, because women’s education is believed to have a positive external effect on the quantity and quality of the education of their children, lower gender inequality would improve the human capital of the next generation, which should in turn promote economic growth (World Bank 2001).

According to the literature a second argument is that an existing gender gap in education implies an adverse selection effect (World Bank 2001; Knowles, Lorgelly et al. 2002) because taking the education of boys to higher levels means that the marginal return to educating girls is higher than that of boys. If men and women have the same innate capacity, giving priority to the men would reduce the productivity of human capital as a whole. This adverse selection will be more visible in the future and differentiated according to the structure of the economies under consideration (post-industrial, industrial, or agricultural). The gender division of labour varies with the economic structure and will therefore influence the transmission mechanisms by which gender affects growth.

A third argument in the literature is that the reduction of fertility levels and child mortality will promote the education of the next generation. These factors will have a positive impact on growth and development (Galor and Weil 1993; Lagerlöf 1999; World Bank 2001; King, Klasen et al. 2008).

A fourth argument is that in regard to the education gap, it is not only the level which matters but also occupational segregation. Educational decisions may be influenced by gender stereotypes that guide men and women into gendered occupations. Internalized norms that influence gender-specific educational choices may result in a suboptimal allocation of ability (Berik, Rodgers et al. 2009).

A number of authors find a correlation between female secondary education and economic growth and conclude that gender inequality in education impacts negatively on growth (Barro and Lee 1994; Dollar and Gatti 1999; Hill and King 1995; Esteve-Volart 2000; Klasen 2000, 2002). They argue that a large gap between males and females in schooling may indicate backwardness in a country, and so may be associated with lower economic growth. Gender disparities in education and health are often greatest among the poor, and disparities between females and males in school enrolments are greater in poor countries than in middle-income and high-income countries.

Econometric tests in the framework of neo-classical endogenous growth models show there is a positive relation between the education of women and a country’s economic growth. According to Barro and Lee (1994) the partial correlation between women’s secondary education and economic growth is negative, while on the other hand it is positive for men.² According to the interpretation these results are difficult to explain but based on the existence of ‘conditional convergence’, the wider gender gap in education in lower-income countries means there is greater potential for future growth. Dollar and Gatti (1999) show that gender inequity in secondary education has a negative impact on growth, but only in middle and high income countries. They also show evidence that the gender gap in education is a good indicator of backwardness. However, the wider gender gap in education in lower-income countries means there is greater potential for future growth. Dollar and Gatti (1999) show that gender inequity in secondary education has a negative impact on growth.

Hill and King (1995), in the same analytic tradition, also find a connection between females having lower enrolments in education than men and low levels of per capita income. Esteve-Volart (2000), working with a sample of 90 countries, finds that an increase of 1 per cent in the proportion of girls in primary school enrolment raises the growth rate by more than 0.012 percentage points. Klasen (2000 and 2002), working with data from the 1960 to 1992 period from more than 100 countries, reports that between 0.4 per cent and 0.9 per cent of the differences in growth rates between Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East are due to gender gaps in education.

1.1.2 Women in the Labour Market

There are two principal dimensions to this aspect of gender inequality: the share of the labour force and the earnings gap. They overlap, particularly in the causal factors behind them: the same factors may well be causing a change in both together, and they interact, as an ample literature demonstrates. Here we consider both aspects together.

In a study of the labour participation rate, Goldin (2000) found that a major trend in the twentieth century in the United States was an increase in the work force due to greater participation of women. They joined the labour force in increasing numbers throughout the century, which has contributed to raising the aggregate labour force participation rate of 25 to 44 year olds by about 50 per cent. In Latin American countries too women’s labour force participation has increased in the course of the twentieth century, although with differences between countries. Overall, the rate of female participation doubled to around 40 per cent by the end of the period.

In some Latin American countries the rate of change was altered quite sharply with the recent wave of globalization. In many developing countries the impact has been profound. Various authors highlight how the globalization process sometimes presents an opportunity to increase the demand for female labour, mostly low-skill labour, and this results in a narrowing of the wage gap. This can be observed for some regions of developing countries during the trade liberalization phase from the 1970s on (Dell 2005).

Does either participation or the earnings gap matter for growth? Generally, as regards the labour market,³ the direct evidence seems to indicate that lower rates of female employment activity relative to men are negatively related to growth (Young 1995; Klasen 2000). Theory supports this: as with the effect of educational inequality, if women’s employment chances are worse this is likely to mean that the average ability of the work force will be lower than if there was no gender inequality in employment. This will in turn reduce the growth of the economy (Klasen 2000). When women are segregated into certain occupations or sectors because of discrimination, it is likely that the average capacity of the workforce will be weaker because potentially productive women will be excluded and less productive men will be employed. Inequality is generated, and there is an imbalance between the job and the best person to do it. It is expected that as economic growth and industrialization raise the demand for labour, employers who resist employing women will incur greater costs than employers who do not discriminate.

Galor and Weil (1993), in a theoretical modelling, argue that economic growth will reduce the gender gap in earnings, by including more women in the labour force, lowering fertility and then further advancing economic growth. Incorporating human capital accumulation strengthens the case by amplifying the increase in output that results from lower fertility and higher female labour force participation. Thus, in low-income countries with high gender gaps in earnings, high fertility and low economic growth will perpetuate the gender earnings gap and constitute a poverty trap.

Esteve-Volart (2004) develops and tests her theoretical model, arguing that if women are excluded from managerial positions, equilibrium wages and human capital investment for both male and female workers are reduced and the average talent of managers is lower. Lower talent then leads to less innovation and technology adoption. If women are completely excluded from the labour force, they can only engage in home production, which leads to lower aggregate productivity and lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita.

Turning to other empirical evidence, it is sometimes contradictory. We cite two extreme cases: Tzannatos (1999), who considers the experience of Latin America in the eighties, concludes that if male and female wages had been equal, then production would have been 6 per cent higher. Seguino (2000), however, in a study of semi-industrialized countries from 1975 to 1995, finds that wage inequality between men and women is positively related to growth. Although there are differences between countries and economic structures the authors point as an explanation that low women’s wages contribute to capital investment, having a positive impact on exports competitivene...