Guest edited also with Lucia Rios Bellagamba.*
In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), women’s economic potential remains untapped. While 75% of males participate in the labor force, only 51% of women do. Women’s economic opportunities are held back by systematic barriers to jobs, an unequal distribution of caregiving responsibilities, and biased social norms that can result in serious social consequences, such as violence against women.
Rigorous evidence can drive smarter policies. Here we summarize the lessons of 17 cutting-edge studies from LAC on the drivers of gender inequality and the policies that can make a difference. The papers were presented at a recent Policy Research Workshop on Women and Jobs, in Bogotá, Colombia, in October 2025.** The workshop was co-organized by the World Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab (LACGIL) and the Center for Research on Women and Jobs (CRWJ), and Universidad de los Andes.
Institutions and Norms Reshape Power and Economic Participation
· Unilateral divorce laws rebalanced time use among Mexican couples. The introduction of unilateral divorce reduced married women’s time spent on childcare without changes in fertility or domestic help. Improved exit options seem to increase women’s bargaining power (Sierra).
· The legalization of divorce in Chile increased marriage rates. The 2004 legalization of divorce in Chile reversed declining marriage rates as it weakened marital commitment. It also decreased women’s employment, as asset division upon divorce acts as an insurance mechanism (Joubert).
· In Nicaragua, new economic opportunities triggered backlash. An expansion of manufacturing jobs increased employment opportunities for low-educated women, but it also increased intimate partner violence, likely as a result of backlash and limited legal protection for women (Grogan).
· Co-education expanded STEM pathways in Colombia. Converting girls’ schools to co-ed schools increased female STEM enrollment, a field where males tend to be overrepresented. This shift appears consistent with changes in academic competition, aspirations, and confidence in STEM fields due to changes in peer composition (Polanco-Jiménez).
Women leaders deliver climate benefits. Brazilian municipalities narrowly electing female mayors reduced greenhouse gas emissions, in part driven by a decline in deforestation (Viollaz).
Care Shapes Women’s Economic Opportunities
· Peru’s preschool expansion boosted mothers’ work. The rollout of public preschool increased women’s labor income and shifted mothers from unpaid family work to higher-quality jobs (Cueva).
· A school reform in Brazil boosted mothers’ economic participation. Lowering Brazil’s mandatory school-entry age increased mothers’ labor force participation and reduced housework time, with the strongest gains for Black and rural mothers (França).
· In Peru, maternity leave benefits incentivized formality. A 2022 reform that relaxed eligibility for maternity leave in Peru increased women’s affiliation with contributory insurance at childbirth and promoted transitions into formal employment (Medina).
· In Mexico, the termination of childcare programs shifted time allocation away from work. The program termination resulted in stronger declines in weekly hours worked in single-parent households (Olvera et al.).
· Child disability widens the motherhood penalty. In Brazil, mothers of children with Zika-related disabilities reduce labor participation in both formal and informal markets, while fathers’ employment remains unchanged (Garcia).
· Water scarcity reshapes labor supply decisions. Intermittent water supply reduces hours worked for women in the formal sector, likely due to related time costs, while women in the informal sector work more to compensate for the financial burden of shortages (Rico).
Building Better Labor Markets
· There are large, gendered differences in firm productivity in the region. Enterprise surveys from nine countries in LAC reveal that female-managed firms generate lower sales, profits, and value added. Around 60% of this gap is explained by differences in access to productive inputs, nonetheless a sizable gap is “unexplained” (González).
· In Brazil, a labor reform expanded flexible work for women. The 2017 reform reduced restrictions on part-time and flexible contracts, resulting in a transition to formal employment, especially for women (Srebot).
· Export shocks can have gendered effects. Following Brazil’s 1999 devaluation that resulted in increased manufacturing exports, female-led firms hired more women managers and supervisors (Paz).
· Recruitment practices can reinforce occupational segregation. In Ecuador, a field experiment with professional recruiters shows that male recruiters are more likely to refer women candidates, but primarily into female-typed roles (Zanoni).
· Early-career job loss results in persistent earnings losses, especially for men. Data from Brazil show that first-job displacement generates more persistent earnings losses for men, likely driven by faster transitions from unemployment into lower-paying occupations (Santos).
· Agricultural innovation can deepen gender inequality. The diffusion of genetically engineered soy in Brazil reduced both the number and land area of female-owned rural properties, in part because women lacked access to credit and capital to benefit from the new technology (Santos).
*The authors acknowledge the use of AI tools to generate this blog. All content has been carefully reviewed by the authors.
** None of the papers were final, peer-reviewed publications at the time of writing this blog. All results are still subject to change. The interpretations of the findings of the papers in this blog are those of the authors of the blog.
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