Mexico’s wealth per inhabitant could increase by 22% by 2060 if the gender gap in the labor market were eliminatedl as regards the differences in the activity rate and in the number of hours worked between men and women.
In a report published this Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Mexico is the country of the 38 members that has the greatest growth potential because that gender gap is the largest.
The authors of the study have calculated that if the activity rate of women were equated to that of men and the number of paid working hours, Mexico’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) could grow 0.52 percentage points each year.
That is well over twice the OECD average (0.21 points), where the progression of GDP per capita expected for 2060 would be 9.2%.
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The other countries of the organization that present the greatest potential, because the differences between men and women are the deepest, are Costa Rica (0.48 percentage points of annual increase), Turkey (0.43 points) and Colombia (0.41 points).
For these three, wealth per inhabitant could rise between 17% and 20% in the 2060 horizon.
In the case of Mexico, women worked 7.4 hours a week less than men in 2021, a gap that had narrowed since 2010, when the difference was 8.4 hours.
For the OECD as a whole, paid work per week was 5.3 hours less for women than for men in 2021 (6.5 hours in 2010).
But where Mexico stands out, above all, is in the very low female activity rate, that is, there are very few women of working age who actually have a job: 49% in the last quarter of 2022 when for men it was a 78.9%
The average in the OECD is a female activity rate of 66.7%, compared to 76.6% for men.
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EFE International news agency based in Madrid and present in more than 110 countries.