Autores: Lorena Alcázar, Fernando Távara, Shirley Huerta

Resumen

Peru suffers from a serious problem of gender inequality in the labor market that cannot be understood only considering employment rates. Rather, it is also necessary to analyze under which conditions women participate in the labor market. This study seeks to identify barriers that women face to access decent employment, considering the economic, legal, and socio-cultural dimensions. We use formal work as an indicator of decent employment but also add an innovative indicator of non-precarious employment relevant in the Peruvian context given that less than 25% of employed women work in the formal sector. This indicator considers minimum acceptable working conditions: at least a minimum legal salary and maximum working hours. The study provides a complete vision of the barriers through a mixed methodology, including an econometric estimation of barriers and interviews and focus groups with working and non-working women. The results show that the main barriers that hinder access to decent work in Peru are related to gender stereotypes both at the household level (which almost exclusively entrust women with household and care tasks) and in the labor market (where women face discrimination and sexual harassment). Given that women need to take care of their children, and given the lack of care services, many of them end up taking low-quality jobs.

Expositor

Lorena Alcázar

Licenciada en Economía de la Universidad del Pacífico con Diploma en Economía Política e Internacional del Kiel Institute of World Economics y maestría y PhD. en Economía por Washington University in St. Louis. Es Investigadora Principal y Directora de Proyectos del Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo y miembro del Comité Directivo de Southern Voice. Ha sido Profesora e Investigadora de la Universidad del Pacífico, Economista del Banco Mundial, Vicepresidenta de OSITRAN e  Investigadora Visitante en Brookings Institution. Más de 25 años de experiencia en investigaciones y publicaciones en temas de desarrollo, género y otros grupos vulnerables, educación, salud y nutrición y evaluación de programas sociales en Perú y otros países latinoamericanos.