Costa Ric A Model Democracy For Other Latin American...

Over the past few decades we a have observed progress in social policies that protect women in Costa Rica. In fact, Costa Rica has been often used as a model democracy for other Latin American countries. However, Costa Rica has had trouble addressing the persistent gender inequality in employment, which limits the growth for women. The Gender Inequality Index (GII) value for Costa Rica is 0.344, which ranks it 63rd out of 149 countries in the 2013 (Human Development Reports, Table 4, 2014). In contrast, we observed that both Panama and Uruguay, which are both Latin American countries that rank higher than Costa Rica for human development, have lower GII values. Panama and Uruguay are ranked at 107 and 70 respectively for GII (Human Development Reports, Table 4, 2014). We also observed similar results in the other components that make up the GII. For instance, we witnessed 38.6% of the seats in parliament are held by women. Costa Rica is also experiencing more women reaching secondary level of education than men; 54.5% for women compared to 52.8% for men (Human Development Reports, Table 4, 2014). In spite of this, women have a much lower participation rate in the labor market than men. Female participation in the labor market in Costa Rica is at 46.4% compared to 79% for men (Human Development Reports, Table 4, 2014). We also observed differences in the economic activity between men and women in three different sectors, which are the service, agriculture, and