Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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sex and activity (see figure II.2). The gaps between men and women, particularly in the area of domestic
work, make it safe to say that the region’s society is unequal in numerous respects. More privileged
women do not achieve equality with men of the same educational level; they are discriminated against
even as, like them, they enjoy the benefits of income concentration, access to the labour market and
protection of their rights. At the other extreme, paid domestic workers do not thus benefit indirectly from
the work of their husbands or partners (when they have them), men who are poor like them but without
necessarily being equitable. The situation of women employed in private homes for little pay is thus a
prism revealing many of the inequalities that fracture society.
F. WHO ARE THE WOMEN DESCRIBING THEMSELVES AS DOMESTIC WORKERS, AND
WHAT ARE THEY LIKE “DOUBLY DOMESTIC” OR DOUBLE-SHIFT CARERS
Women’s education levels have increased significantly in recent decades. Whereas in 2005, 35% of the
urban female population aged 15 and over had 6 years of schooling or less, fully 56% of women working
in domestic service had not completed primary education. In addition, 50% of “housewives” also had six
years of education or less. This shows that lack of education among women is a decisive factor in
reproducing the current pattern of care work.
This link between lack of education and caregiving can be accounted for by the fact that domestic
work, paid or otherwise, does not require any special qualifications other than skills derived from the
gender socialization process. The concentration of women in care work and the lack of educational
opportunities are mutually reinforcing, highlighting a market logic that requires a large enough mass of
paid or unpaid carers to keep society functioning.
Conversely, analysis of the population of women with 13 years of education or more shows that
most of these work in better-paid and more prestigious occupations (see figure II.3). In urban areas,
women working in domestic service or exclusively as unpaid housewives have higher illiteracy rates than
the rest of the female population, which matches the pattern observed (see table 10 in the statistical
annex).
These data are important, first and foremost, for governments, since they show the difficulties
that have to be overcome to achieve the third Millennium Development Goal: “promote gender equality
and empower women”. The dropping of adult literacy programmes in almost all the educational reforms
carried out in the recent past has heightened the vulnerability of many women, particularly Afrodescendants
and members of indigenous groups in some of the region’s countries. 39 The data analysed are
also important for women’s movements that have to take account of the divides between women
themselves in the design of their equality agendas. Although domestic and care work is common ground
for women from different social categories and income groups, it is clear that poorly paid domestic
workers have to face a twofold burden as unprotected workers with family responsibilities. When the
cultural divides between these different groups are considered as well, this challenge ultimately ties in
with the needs of social cohesion and integration.
39
At the national level, new large-scale literacy training efforts are beginning in Bolivia and the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela, so that in future it should be possible to study their effects on the most vulnerable groups
of women (information provided by the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela at the subregional
preparatory meeting for South America for the tenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin
America and the Caribbean, Santiago, Chile, May 2007).