International Women's Day is celebrated worldwide in commemoration of the ongoing efforts to achieve gender equality and the full development of women as people.

To such an extent this continues to be an unfinished process and is still far from being exhausted that, according to projections by the World Economic Forum carried out in 2014 [link]; It would not be possible to achieve gender parity worldwide until 2095.

Worse still, when the projection was re-estimated the following year, there was a slowdown in the pace of progress in closing the gap, meaning that the gender gap would not close completely until the year 2133.

According to that same report, of a total of 145 registered countries, Argentina ranks 35th in the 2015 Global Gender Gap Index (GGGi) with a total of 0,734 points, where a score of 0 means the highest level. inequality, and 1 the highest level of equality.

With a basic idea similar to that used to construct the Human Development Index, the GGGi covers a wide range of issues that are summarized in the following table:

Although there is still much to do, according to this classification, our country is among the best ranked in Latin America, and certainly ranks above 75% of the countries in the sample.

As can be seen in the table, in general terms the topics that present the greatest variability, and therefore, those that have the greatest weight in explaining the gap, refer to the participation of women in the labor market, and in the political arena of each country.

Beyond the general picture, it is clear that an index per country - by construction - does not take into account differences in the size of the gap within each of them.

It is also clear that the existence of a homogeneous gender gap throughout the territory is more unlikely than a scenario of heterogeneous situations.

What is the situation of women in our region?

To answer this question, we will use the latest available data provided by the Permanent Household Survey for the Gran Rosario Agglomerate (AGR), at the end of the Second Quarter of 2015.

Women in the AGR

In the area, women are the majority, since they represent 51.5% of the total population. Now, if we take into account different stages of life, such as those that we have reflected in the following graph, it is observed that 30.41% of the population is concentrated in the age range that goes from 25 to 45. year old.

It is also in this range where the largest number of women is concentrated, 15.7% of the total population, which in absolute terms represents 223.535 inhabitants.

Seeing that there are no large gender differences in the ranges prior to the cut-off point of 25 years, a plausible hypothesis to explain the abrupt change that is registered after that age is due to internal migration issues.

In fact, 75.4% of the women were born in this town, 8.7% in a different town and 14.4% come from another province.

Another interesting fact that emerges from this graph is that it seems to be in line with the situation described in Table 1 regarding equality in educational achievements.

If there were an intention on the part of families to privilege university studies for men over that of women, a significant gender difference should be registered in the age range that goes from 18 to 24 years, driven by those who migrate - especially to the city of Rosario- looking for educational offers for higher education.

Let us now advance, as far as the EPH data allows us, in the breakdown of the items that make up the Global Gender Gap Index.

Indicators with the best overall score: Education and health

In general, the data collected by medical health coverage, do not show significant differences between genders.

In fact, the group with the greatest variation is made up of the 808.594 inhabitants who declare they have coverage by social insurance (including PAMI), of which 53.42% are women, while 46.58% are men.

Table 2 shows the main coverage items broken down by gender group of the agglomerate, which seems to follow the same behavior as the general table in the first section.

What happens to education level? In our region, the gap seems to be unbalanced in favor of women. If seen in Graph 2, the proportion of women with completed studies is always greater than the proportion of men in the same field.

On the other hand, the proportion of men with incomplete studies at all levels exceeds that of the group of women.

The graph, in any case, shows the problem we have as a society, at the initial and secondary levels. Especially when we have already established that the bulk of our population is concentrated in the range between 25 and 45 years of age.

Indicators with low scores: Labor Market and Income

Before beginning to describe women's participation in the labor market, let us first see how they participate in the formation of the homes. As can be seen from Table 3, 24.5% of women assume the role of head of household, that is, the person who is recognized as such by the other members of the household.

On the other hand, 32.1% of those assume the role of spouse, compared to just 6% in the case of men.

In principle, this information could be irrelevant with regard to women's participation in the labor market, given that the figure of head of household could be explained by other issues.

The inertia of traditions or some cultural traits could also be important factors when explaining the valuation of the members of a household, in determining who holds the role of head.

However, in the agglomerate there is a clear correlation between the level of income contributed by each member of the couple, and the role they play within the family structure.

All of which pre-announces the problem that had been detected at the beginning of this report.

So, what is the participation of women in the local labor market? According to the information available, it is observed that 36.0% of the women in the Gran Rosario Agglomerate are employed, 9.11% are unemployed, and 46.9% are inactive.

As seen in Table 4, the differences between genders in this area are frankly notable. However, at this point we must be extremely careful in attributing these differences to gender issues.

For example, the activity level is defined by the number of people who have a job, or who, without having one, are actively looking for one.

Therefore, the difference that we see in this indicator, at a first level of analysis, could be due (or not) to various factors, among which we must consider the simple decision by women of not wanting to actively participate in the labor market.

Of course, the story does not end there. At a second level of analysis, it could be argued that there are certain social evaluations biased in favor of men, which would be attenuating women's decisions to embark on work in general terms. The point is that, in order to determine causality, we would need other types of data.

Let's see then what happens with the income level of those who are employed, and see if that information helps tell the same story.

For this purpose, in the following graphs the family per capita income level of the population of the Gran Rosario Agglomerate into ten groups called “deciles”.

Under this order, the first decile represents the lowest income, while the other end represents the highest income.

In Graph 3, we present the number of employed people in the region, discriminating by gender.

Again, you have to be careful when reading this graph. A quick reading would lead us to conclude that the difference between men and women is very marked, and that it is in favor of the former.

Now, in Table 4 we had established that there was a notable difference between the activity rates between genders, which also - by definition - impacts the employment rate.

In other words, if in the second quarter of 2015, a total of 371.073 men and a total of 264.081 women were employed in the region, it should not surprise us that there are differences in the absolute number of both sexes per decile.

If what we want to find out is whether there is gender discrimination in the labor market, we have to observe not the absolute values ​​that the survey gives us, but rather translate it into relative values.

Let's see then what happens when we compare the proportion of men and women in each decile.

Graph 4 shows that the proportion of women who are employed is greater or equal in the highest income deciles (that is, from the 6th decile).

All of which confirms the trend shown in Graph 3 and, considering that usually higher incomes are correlated with a higher level of education; The conclusion is also consistent with what is shown in Graph 2.

Final thoughts and a call to action

Unfortunately we do not have information about political empowerment; point at which, although our country does not ranks bad in relative terms (Argentina ranks 22nd), the absolute score is worryingly low: a score of 0.347 was obtained, against the 0.719 obtained by Iceland in first global place.  

So what can we take away from the report?

1. The information provided by the Global Gender Gap Index at the country level, and that provided by the Permanent Household Survey at the regional level, tell the same story. It should also be noted that any study on the symbolic is beyond us, although it cannot fail to be mentioned, given its importance in this context.
2. It remains unresolved which are the factors that influence the decision, on the part of women, to moderate their participation in the labor market with respect to men. A more rigorous study should delve into the identification of these causes, and above all, in providing evidence on whether there is any mechanism of gender segregation that is operating on average, or in certain sectors of the population.
3. An issue that emerges from this report and that may become worrying refers to the vulnerable sectors of the population. As can be seen in Chart 4, the relative participation of women in the lowest income deciles is much lower than that of men. A study on the configuration of families in this sector, complemented by studies on time use, should shed more light on possible problems of gender gaps focused on vulnerable populations.
4. If we add to this the low general score that our country obtained in terms of political empowerment of women, the previous point worsens. That is to say, we would be faced with a group that - due to their circumstances - requires greater social assistance, but who in political terms would be notoriously under-represented.

Precisely, it is these types of situations that are currently mobilizing a large part of society to ask for higher levels of gender equality.

On the Women's Day website [link], anyone, male or female, is encouraged to commit to taking a concrete step to help achieve gender parity more quickly.