Labour Force Participation by country

In this post I will explore the labour participation of men and women in South America between 1990 and 2021. For this, I have used the “Labour Force Participation Rate” database of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which you can find here This database considers the labour force from the age of 15 and older.

Male labour force participation in South America

Next, we can see that, during the first decade of the 2000s, Peru remains at the top of the table with around 85% male labour force participation. Countries such as Suriname and Guyana remain below 75% from 2000 onwards. It is worth noting that one of the countries with the greatest decline over the years was Venezuela, which went from 81% male labour force participation in 1990 to 68% in 2021.

Female labour force participation in South America

On the other hand, we can observe that in the case of women, labour participation does not usually exceed 70%. Exceptionally, Peru reached 73% in 2010. Likewise, the case of Bolivia stands out, which was at the forefront in the 1990s with approximately 59% female labour participation, and which by 2021 ended up with 69% participation. In contrast, Chile maintained values between 30%-50% between 1990 and 2021.

Conclusion

Finally, we can conclude that although male labour force participation is higher than female participation, we can observe a greater dynamism in the increase of female participation between 1990 and 2021, with some countries, such as Peru, increasing their participation by approximately 30% during this period.