Closing Gender Gaps in the Southern Cone: An Untapped Potential for Growth (Executive Summary)

In this volume, we study gender gaps in the Southern Cone countries which include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. We assess the importance of gender inequalities and present evidence on their economic consequences, their drivers, and the policy tools that can contribute to mitigating them. Gender gaps in access to public services, human capital accumulation, and the labor market limit overall productivity and economic growth, and policies that mitigate these inequalities have the potential to foster economic development and wellbeing. In our current context, a global pandemic has highlighted and even widened gender gaps, meaning policymakers are in urgent need of a new set of policies that can foster gender parity in the recovery phase. This volume is thus a timely compendium of solid evidence to design policies that can effectively tackle gender disparities in Southern Cone countries.