- The female salary averaged RD $ 26,820 in January
- 60% of the jobs lost were by women
DR – The balance of the pandemic on female employment has been mixed: while women were the most affected by unemployment caused by the COVID-19 crisis in the country, at the end of the year, they also showed an average salary level slightly above that recorded by their male peers.
The data published by the Social Security Treasury in the Labor Panorama document indicate that last January, women closed with an average salary of 26,820.4 pesos per month, which places female remuneration 2.8% above what men earned on average for that month of the year, which were 26,073.6 pesos per month.
The current differences in the labor force between men and women are based on the educational gap between both genders and access to managerial or corporate positions.
While the educational level of the male workforce is concentrated in primary and secondary school, female workers have achieved a higher academic level: 33.4% have a university degree, which contrasts with 17% of university men who are active in the labor market, according to data from the Continuous National Survey of the Workforce published by the Central Bank.
According to official figures, women are mainly in professional and intellectual occupations, as office personnel and as service workers. Some of them are higher-paying jobs.
Although last year closed with a salary difference in favor of women, the glass ceiling persists. Only 1.44% of employed women held positions as employers or partners of companies, while almost 4% of their male peers held those positions at the end of the third quarter of last year. The jobs that COVID-19 destroyed
According to a recent study presented by the National Statistics Office (ONE), job losses during the first three quarters of 2020 mainly affected women, especially those who worked in the informal market. Meanwhile, according to the study, women and men lost jobs in the formal economy at similar rates.
Although the female population is less numerous in the labor market, 60% of the jobs lost during the third quarter of last year corresponded to women. Between July and September —which is the most up-to-date data— a total of 328,392 people lost their jobs: 197,286 were women, while 131,106 men were unemployed.
