Blog 6: Gender Equality in Brazil

Gender Equality Pays Off in Brazil

Ray King

In Brazil, they have become well-known for their efforts to reduce poverty and income inequalities in more recent years. However, they have also been focusing on gender equality in the last two decades. Illiteracy rates for women from 20.3 percent in 1991 down to 9.8 percent in 2008. The number of women with college-level education in the work force went from 7.4 percent in 1992 to now above the number of men with college education. In light of these great strides of progress for women, there is still work to be done. On average, women in Brazil make 84 percent of what a Brazilian man earns. Women also seem to take the majority of household work at home in many Brazilian families. According to the World Bank's World Development Report for 2012, lessening gender inequality can have positive effects on both economic growth and social welfare. It is believed that having women's 'take-home' pay become equal to men's would increase Brazil's GDP by 0.2 percent. There will be other dramatic effects occur when you place talented and skilled women into higher and more productive positions. They believe placing women in higher and more productive positions within their society will also trigger growth in public infrastructure and transportation as it would create an environment where everyone is equally motivated to work hard because they are treated and compensated equally regardless of gender. Included here are some findings from the Symposium on Gender Inequality in Emerging Markets states that “Gender inequality is bad economics. It deprives national economies of women's talents. It reduces the productive potential of labor forces. It constrains consumption, diminishes tax yields and curtails the national and personal benefits of investment in female education by forcing women into professions and occupations that make less than full use of their skills and capabilities.” Certainly, leaving out roughly half of the population from positions where they can contribute fairly doesn't just deprive women, but men also. The society as a whole needs equal input from both sexes in order to be optimally productive, and it seems as if Brazil is definitely on the way to being just that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/otaviano-canuto/gender-equality-pays-off_b_2828480.html