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Current overview of women's participation in the labor force in Colombia
In Colombia, 52% of the working-age population comprises women; however, they represent 42.8% of the Labor Force and 51.8% of the Unemployed Population [1]. Why is it that in a country where demographically there are more women than men of working age, the majority of the unemployed population at all educational levels is made up of women? (See Figure 1). Diving deeper into this technical bulletin on the “Labor market by sex” of the National Administrative Department of Statistics in Colombia (DANE) for the second quarter of 2024, it is visible that, by occupational position, only 30.6% of people in the tenure to employ are women and that, in the rest of the occupations of this category, women participate in higher proportion as domestic employees, unpaid family workers, and government workers/employees, in successive order.
Figure 1. Unemployment rate by educational level achieved and gender. Image taken from DANE technical bulletin on labor force and education, year 2022 [2].
Additionally, according to a note on Leadership and Political Participation by UN Women Colombia [3], currently, the majority of the total number of students graduating from university education are women. However, in governmental activities, women only represent 29.2% of the Congress of the Republic [4], 29.6% of the Senate, 13% of the city mayors [5], and 18.8% of the governors' offices.
On the other hand, in terms of research and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers, in 2020, women made up 38% of the total number of professionals in research areas in Colombia [6], and in 2021, only 31.5% of students in STEM careers were women [7]. It is also relevant to mention that up to 2018, the three cities in the country with the broadest gender gap in STEM were Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Cali, the two first being principal cities in the Caribbean Region [8].
The reason? Career and professional perspectives
The fact that Colombian women do not tend to be in positions of political, academic, and business leadership may be influenced by several factors. Observing it from a labor perspective, some reasons for leaving work with a higher incidence in women than in men are family responsibilities, unsatisfactory working conditions, and dismissal, in addition to closure/difficulties in the company, among others [9].
The former was the case of 32.1% of women outside the labor force aged 25 years or older who stated leaving their jobs because of family liabilities, while this percentage is only 2.2% for men [9]. In other words, this information makes visible the inequity in the burden of household responsibilities attributed to women on many occasions for reasons of gender role ideologies.
Gender biases and misinformation can also cause unsatisfactory working conditions for women, either due to harassment, discrimination, and non-inclusive environments, which, in turn, compromise their opportunities for professional growth in the company.
From a nurturing and educational perspective, self-perception and acquired skills are fundamental to women's professional success. Self-concept and academic performance are intimately linked: it has been observed that an underachieving student tends to perceive herself as less adequate than other students [10].
In developing a self-perception, a range from 5 to 10 years of age is crucial [11]. According to Nobre & Valentini, from 2 to 4 years of age, children tend to make judgments of themselves based on aspects that appear concrete and observable in their lives [11]. They describe their attributes in terms of their possessions or what they believe they can do, and though they have unrealistic perceptions of themselves because of their inability to distinguish between wanting to do and being able to do, the fact that their nuclear family sometimes reinforces positive attributes unrealistically can help as a motivational and emotional protection tool to persist and develop new skills.
From early childhood, they build firm images of their self-efficacy, which provide them with a range of expectations about their school work [10]. Each girl finds herself invisibly labeled positively through interest and affection or by receiving negative messages from her environment, weakening and distorting her self-concepts [10]. When girls enter a school environment, they have a self-perception formed from their family environment. Nevertheless, this can be susceptible to modification: teachers and other students somehow replace their parents as the predominant source of self-information [10].
Later, between the ages of 5 and 7, boys and girls evaluate themselves in terms of social, athletic, and cognitive competencies, among others. The differences between the two genders are more evident; their self-descriptions often reflect gender stereotypes established in professional roles. At this age, they still have a perception of “good” and “bad” as “all or nothing.” There is no consciousness that they can be skilled in some aspects but not in others; however, children can distinguish between various attributes to make these judgments [11].
The above also indicates that a girl who grows up in a family nucleus where she hears biases related to gender roles will have a limited self-perception about her ability to perform in leadership positions and STEM, among others. However, this self-concept may improve or worsen during her school years. For example, if she is in the range between 5 and 7 years of age, and her parents and teachers often remind her that “women are not good at mathematics” and, additionally, fails a math test, she will most likely label herself as “bad” at mathematics, since she has no psychological reinforcement to help her persist, nor does know role models with whom she can identify as a woman who is good at mathematics.
Finally, between 8 and 10 years of age, describing their competencies by comparing their abilities with the characteristics of their peers becomes relevant to their self-assessment [11]. In this last stage of childhood, girls are encouraged to motivate themselves for the fun and sense of well-being that an activity can provide. Conversely, boys are instructed to be motivated by the pleasure of competition, the sense of movement, the pursuit of learning, and performance improvement. Competition and the pursuit of improved performance can lead children to have feelings of achievement and pleasure from competition, consequently favorably affecting their perception of competing [11].
After age 10, in addition to self-perception, which is forged in most cases, access to knowledge and opportunities becomes a key factor for young girls to pursue a career in STEM or aiming at leadership positions. Upon finishing high school with the conviction of having the skills to study the career of their choice, the lack of resources and knowledge of opportunities/options to access higher education can become impediments for women to keep growing professionally.
Conclusions
Both perspectives indicate that the demystification of gender stereotypes must include all the people who are part of a community. For this reason, in professional, educational, and familiar settings, an awareness of the importance of building an equitable and inclusive environment is needed. Company policies to denounce harassment and gender discrimination, as well as other mechanisms that promote the access and growth of women in the organization, are paramount to continue closing this labor gender gap. These policies also concern higher education institutions; tools to reduce the academic dropout rate among women are also necessary to narrow the professional gender gap.
In the school stage, for groups between 5 and 10 years of age, presenting role models and including in the educational plan activities that encourage competence in girls and the development of soft skills in boys, in addition to debunking gender stereotypes, can be different strategies to strengthen the self-perception of female students.
For high school groups (usually with students over ten years old), the institution can carry out programs to provide students with tools to broaden their knowledge. They can consist of workshops on programming, leadership, and information sessions to access higher education, among others. Thus, students will evaluate options, resources, and opportunities to make informed professional decisions.
I do not want to end this entry without emphasizing that this is not a problem that can be associated with the “mindset” of one gender. The above results reaffirm that there are many external elements related to biases and stereotypes that can affect our self-perception but also limit women's access to opportunities and create a hostile environment for their professional development.
References
[1] DANE, “Boletín Técnico: Mercado Laboral Según Sexo. Información abril - junio 2024,” Bogotá D.C., Aug. 2024. Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/mercado-laboral/segun-sexo
[2] DANE, “Boletín Técnico: Fuerza Laboral y Educación,” Bogotá D.C., Sep. 2022. Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/mercado-laboral/fuerza-laboral-y-educacion
[3] ONU Women Colombia, “Liderazgo y participación política.” Accessed: Sep. 23, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://colombia.unwomen.org/es/como-trabajamos/liderazgo-y-participacion-politica
[4] Sisma Mujer, “Comunicado de Prensa: Instalación del Congreso de la República 2022- 2026,” Jul. 2022. Accessed: Aug. 28, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.sismamujer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Boletin-30-Mujeres-en-el-Congreso-1.pdf
[5] Senado de la República de Colombia, “Los colombianos tendrán seis gobernadoras y 146 alcaldesas en el país.” Accessed: Aug. 28, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://senado.gov.co/index.php/el-senado/noticias/4891-los-colombianos-tendran-seis-gobernadoras-y-146-alcaldesas-en-el-pais
[6] Minciencias, “En Colombia solo el 38% de los investigadores, son mujeres” Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://minciencias.gov.co/sala_de_prensa/en-colombia-solo-el-38-los-investigadores-son-mujeres-minciencias
[7] H. Bayona Rodríguez, “STEM: una lucha en clave de género,” Ministerio de Educación Nacional. Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.mineducacion.gov.co/portal/micrositios-institucionales/Dia-de-la-Mujer-2023/414325:STEM-una-lucha-en-clave-de-genero
[8] K. Patiño, “Cifras de mujeres en ciencia y tecnología en educación en Colombia,” El Tiempo. Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/novedades-tecnologia/cifras-de-mujeres-en-ciencia-y-tecnologia-en-educacion-en-colombia-412200
[9] D. A. Díaz, D. Crespo Martín, M. A. Lara, and K. García Rojas, “Población fuera de la fuerza laboral en Colombia: un análisis con perspectiva de género,” Bogotá D.C., Oct. 2021. Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.dane.gov.co/files/investigaciones/notas-estadisticas/oct-2021-nota-estadistica-poblacion-fuera-de-fuerza-laboral-colombia.pdf
[10] M. I. Ramírez Salguero and F. Herrera Clavero, “El Autoconcepto,” Eúphoros, vol. 5, pp. 187–204, 2002, Accessed: Aug. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1181506
[11] G. C. Nobre and N. C. Valentini, “Autopercepção de competência em crianças: conceito, mudanças características na infância e fatores associados,” Journal of Physical Education, vol. 30, no. 1, p. 3008, Dec. 2018, doi: 10.4025/jphyseduc.v30i1.3008.