SIGN UP FOR OUR By Wendy Anders
Alejandra Mora is the head of the Costa Rican Women’s Institute, dedicated to advancing and supporting women’s status and involvement in society.
Women’s participation in Costa Rica’s private sector is disproportionately low in regards to their educational level, reported the country’s business daily El Financiero recently.
While 66 percent of Costa Rican university graduates are women, the numbers are reversed in the private sector with only 30 percent of those employed women.
This puts the productive sector at a competitive disadvantage, and gives the country a poor return overall on their investment in education.
This was one of the main material expressions of gender inequality identified in the 2015-2016 Global Gender Gap Report presented in a public forum last week.
To close this gap in Costa Rica, Gaudy Solorzano, director of the Center for Collaborative Leadership and Women of at the Incae Business School in Alajuela, recommended implementing paternity leave. This would help eliminate the barrier faced by women when entering the private sector when companies hesitate to assume possible maternity leave and child care costs. The move would also allow men greater participation in their family life at a critical stage when their children are infants, said Solorzano to El Financiero.
The report also emphasized that companies must assume their responsibility in the process, and measure the value of increasing the presence of women in top management positions, said Camelia Ilie, a researcher at Incae.
Ilie proposed legislation to promote equal participation in the private and political sector through temporary female quotas, which would be accompanied by mandatory commitments and evaluated by performance. Similar initiatives have been developed successfully in Europe, reported El Financiero.
