In which professional sectors do women have greater participation?

Before the covid-19 pandemic, the state of inequality between men and women in the business context was already evident. What has happened two years later? What changes have we experienced and how can we notice it?

The female labor market is quite a challenge, and over time that fact has not become, but strengthened. Viviana Rodríguez, Director of Operations at Adecco Ecuador, explains that one of the main consequences of the pandemic has been that more women than men have lost their jobs, moreover, it has been for them more difficult to get a new job opportunity and therefore, reintegrate into the market.

Women lost more full employment positions than men in January 2022, according to INEC

Despite the fact that some years ago the numbers of professional women have continued to increase, the gap continues to widen, especially in managerial or strategic positionswhere it is shown that only the 36% of positions are held by women.

Instead, the areas where they have greater participation vary between Communication, Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, Sales and Marketing. In this line, the sectors where a greater number of female personnel are concentrated are:

• Service sector (62%)
• Sectors that group commercial activities, restaurants and hotels (48%)
• Financial sector (46%)

Women in Ecuador work longer hours and earn less than men

However, in other sectors they are practically absent, as is the case of construction sector, with barely a 4% presence, and in mines and oilwith a 12% participation.

Although the government and the private sector have made some efforts, much remains to be done. Some companies have implemented corporate responsibility policies focused on improving the employability of womensuch as having lactation spaces, day care programs, flexible work modalities, among others.

In Coca Cola, for example, it encourages a culture of diversity and inclusion. Among the initiatives are the creation of the Global Council of Women Leaders (GWLC), mentoring programs and planning for the development of women in middle management of the company. As a result, today 36% of frontline leaders in Latin America are womenand more than half of the company’s population are women (56%).

In Ecuador women continue to earn less than men

Specialist Rodríguez assures that in order to continue improving the quality of the female labor market We must work very hard on policies and projects focused on breaking wage gaps, improve equity in managerial positions, provide stable employment for women, develop policies that help women in vulnerable situations, promote different types of contracts to create greater ease of workamong others. (I)