Inegi: Women tend to make some jobs they do invisible

Graciela Márquez Colín, head of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), said that women tend to make some jobs they do invisible, considering them part of their activities at home. It should be noted that household activities, historically, have been related to the “duty” of women in Mexico, so they are considered unremunerable.

“A question was included in the 2020 Census questionnaire to improve the measurement of the Economically Active Population. Initially, women recorded a rate of 39%, but considering the new question it was 49%”, published the former head of the Ministry of Economy (SE) and added that this difference does not happen for men”

Part of the importance of quantitatively and qualitatively measuring the insertion of women in the world of work and the recognition of unpaid activities lies in the promotion of substantive and participatory inclusion, thereby contributing to the reduction of gender inequity.

This decentralized body has presented fundamental statistics for the Mexican State to act on the social panorama of the population. For example, since the arrival of COVID-19 in Aztec land in February 2020, Inegi detected that 2.7 million women became part of the population who did not carry out economic activities.

“The COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in economic activities, causing, in both women and men, a decrease in the labor market, loss of employment and a drop in labor income. However, the recovery has occurred in a differentiated way,” said the agency.

It also presented a strong and consistent argument to ensure that, during the pandemic, family violence against women increased by 5.3%, which also represents an opprobious environment for the healthy development of children. The crime of domestic violence registered the second highest frequency and showed a significant increase between 2019 and 2020.

In addition, in the period from January to September 2020, 9.2% of women aged 18 and over reported having experienced violence in the family environment. In the same period in 2021, when confinement measures were relaxed and economic activities were reopened, this percentage decreased by 2 percentage points, to 7.2 percent.

Of the women aged 18 and over who suffered violence in the family environment, the main aggressor reported were persons without kinship, followed by the husband/romantic partner and another family member; however, 40% of femicides are committed in the homes of the victims by one of their acquaintances.

It should be noted that it is not the first institution to point out the increase in violence during confinement due to the presence of COVID-19 in the country. For example, the National Network of Shelters AC (RNR) recorded a more than 50 percent increase in entry to its shelters due to violence against women, girls, boys and adolescents during confinement. According to the same organization, this phenomenon increased overall nationwide by 12.71 percent.

However, Inegi's studies turn out to be broader because, as it is an institution with government support, its resources are applied more efficiently, so at the beginning of 2022 it published the study “COVID-19 and its impact on women in Mexico”, in which the new landscape in employment and employment, income and expenditure was proposed. unpaid work and education, health, and security and violence for women in Mexico with the arrival of SARS-CoV-2.

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