Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Inclusive social development: the next generation of policies for overcoming poverty...
Gender inequalities and ethnic and racial inequalities intersect
and reinforce each other, and this can be seen in the situations of
particular disadvantage faced by indigenous women and women
of African descent in various areas, compared both to their male
peers and to non-indigenous, non-Afro-descendent women.
One of the most telling indicators of these intersecting
inequalities are differentials in labour incomes. The figure below
shows the employed population aged 15 and over in eight Latin
American countries, broken down into three groups by schooling
(0 to 3 years, 4 to 7 years, 8 years or more) and analyses the
average labour incomes of each group in terms of multiples of
Box I.1
Intersecting gender, racial and ethnic inequalities
the poverty line. The pattern of inequality is clear, situating nonindigenous,
non-Afro-descendent men at one extreme of the
income scale and indigenous women at the other, regardless
of their levels of schooling. Among those with eight years of
formal education or more, non-indigenous, non-Afro-descendent
men are followed, in descending order, by Afro-descendent
men, non-indigenous, non-Afro-descendent women, Afrodescendent
women, indigenous men and, finally, indigenous
women. In the two lowest schooling levels the pattern is the
same, with the difference that indigenous men receive higher
incomes than all women.
Latin America (8 countries a ): average monthly labour income of indigenous, Afro-descendent and non-indigenous,
non-Afro-descendent population, by years of schooling and sex, around 2011
(Multiples of the poverty line in each country)
7
6
5
4
3
Non-indigenous,
non-Afro-descendent
men
Afro-descendent men
Non-indigenous,
non-Afro-descendent
women
Afro-descendent
women
Indigenous men
2
Indigenous women
1
0
0-3 4-7 8 or more
Years of schooling
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
a Brazil (2011), Chile (2011), Ecuador (2011), Mexico (2010), Paraguay (2011), Peru (2011), Plurinational State of Bolivia (2009) and Uruguay (2011).
These intersecting inequalities can also be seen in the greater
differentials detected, in many cases, among indigenous and
Afro-descendent women compared to non-indigenous, non-
Afro-descendent women. For example, the probability that an
indigenous woman will not have her own source of income
is 1.8 times higher than among indigenous men, whereas
between non-indigenous, non-Afro-descendent women and
men the ratio is 1.5.
Gender and racial inequalities in Brazil: unemployment and informality
A study of the evolution of unemployment and informality rates
in Brazil between 2004 and 2013 highlights the importance
of examining the gender and race dimensions in analyses of
inequalities in the labour market and the way in which those
inequalities intersect in the case of Afro-descendent women. In
that country’s population censuses and household surveys, the
question of race is addressed through people’s self-identification
in terms of five categories of skin colour: white, preta (black),
brown, yellow and indigenous. The total of the preta and
brown categories makes up the Afro-descendent population.
According to the most recent national household survey (2013),
53% of Brazil’s population (103 million people) self-identify as
Afro-descendants.
Between 2004 and 2013, Brazil experienced major
improvements in its labour market indicators, including decreases
in its unemployment and informality rates, as can be seen in
the two figures shown below. The general unemployment rate
among people between the ages of 16 and 64 years fell from
9.0% to 6.5%, with a more pronounced drop among women
(3.3 percentage points) than among men (1.8 percentage points).
However, at the end of the period, the unemployment rate
was 3.5 percentage points higher among women (8.5%) than
among men (5.0%) and 2.1 percentage points higher among
Afro-descendants (7.5%) than among whites (5.4%), while the
rate for Afro-descendent women was significantly more than
twice that of white men (respectively, 10%, 2% and 4.3%).
Chapter I
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