“Our women entrepreneurs save 35% more than men, despite earning 25% less”, according to Laura Fernández Lord, head of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the BBVAMF.
These and other figures pointing to the economic gap between men and women were highlighted by Laura Fernández Lord, head of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the BBVA Microfinance Foundation (BBVAMF), at the High-Level Panel for Latin America and the Caribbean organized on this issue by the United Nations in Costa Rica, in which the Foundation was invited to take part.
This meeting featured experts from several countries and institutions who set out to tackle and devise solutions to a situation in which the figures show that the gap is still far from narrowing. At the worldwide scale, almost half of all women of working age have no access to employment (compared to less than a quarter of men), the salaries for jobs available are on average 24% lower than for men, and most are in the informal economy. The causes include the lack of education and the imbalance in household responsibilities (on which women spend an average of 2.5 times more time than men).
This is why entrepreneurship is one of the few options that enables many women to generate income for themselves (one third of women have no income) and one that also allows them to continue taking care of their home and their children. The typical profile of these entrepreneurs is a poor rural woman, uneducated with dependent children engaged in low-productivity activities.
“Our women entrepreneurs save 35% more than men, despite earning 25% less”, according to Laura Fernández Lord, head of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the BBVAMF
According to the World Bank, gender inequality is also present in access to the financial system: “In 2014 only 58% of women worldwide had access to a current account, as opposed to 65% of men”. This situation gives even great weight to the declarations of the Ibero-American General Secretary, who also took part in the meeting: “The way to bring about faster and more sustainable economic growth lies in the economic inclusion of women”, said Rebeca Grynspan.
Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region where there has been a study of the poorest households over time according to their gender composition. Some of the conclusions continue to raise alarm bells: “There are more women than men living below the poverty threshold and this proportion has grown since 1997”, signals the report entitled UN Women Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016. This gap is much greater for women at the head of single-parent households (separated, widows or single mothers) with dependents, a growing reality in Latin America.
The importance of women’s role in the economy and as a key factor in reducing poverty means that most –61%– of the vulnerable people the BBVAMF supports with productive loans are women. Laura Fernández Lord emphasized that these women progress faster than the male entrepreneurs served by this non-profit institution, which specializes in promoting sustainable and inclusive economic and social development for the underprivileged: “Their income increases an average of 19.9% as opposed to 11.4% in the case of men, and their assets grow by 31.8% year-on-year compared to 27.4% for men”. She also described the main outlines of the institution’s commitment to technology as a tool for facilitating women’s access to the financial system and for helping ensure that poverty no longer wears a female face.