Today, only one in three jobs in companies linked to sustainable energy generation is held by women, revealed a study by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). But there are many more that are ready to enter this sector. A 2021 LinkedIn survey managed to measure that there are 62 women for every 100 men who say they have ‘green talent’.
In a study carried out with the ILO, they concluded that 15 million jobs can be created in this area alone in the next eight years.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) held a forum last month with ministers of labor and areas of diversity from 70 countries and came to the conclusion that the only way to take advantage of the development, growth and investment that this will unleash in the region business towards 2030 will be adding women.
There is an enormous opportunity to generate jobs with high added value in clean and renewable energies in Latin America because it is, moreover, “a region whose population is aging faster than in the rest of the world and we can only respond to this phenomenon with prosperity if we add more women to the labor market,” Caridad Araujo, head of the IDB’s Gender and Diversity Division, said in one of the main panels.
One of the plans of this multilateral organization is to provide financing for the training of women in digital skills and in the necessary skills in companies that generate and use renewable energy to close the enormous gender labor gap, which has even widened in the region due to of the pandemic. COVID-19 removed 13 million women from their jobs, the biggest setback in the last 30 years.
The IDB announced that it would have funds for 24,000 million dollars in the next four years for plans that add decarbonization on the one hand and the incorporation of female labor on the other.
Why is it an interesting sector? According to the IMF, currently –in a global economy with uncertainty–, the average investment is 630,000 million dollars per year in clean energy generation, but it should rise to between 3 and 6 billion if we want to accompany world growth with this decarbonization .
In Latin America alone, the demand for primary energy and electricity will grow between 25 and 40% by 2040, calculates the IDB.