Colombian paper examines women in the workplace

Female participation in the Colombian workforce jumped by almost 20% in the two decades up to 2006, according to a working paper published by the country's central bank earlier this week.

In The rise in female participation in Colombia: Fertility, marital status or education? Diego Amador, Raquel Bernal and Ximena Peña find the increase in overall participation is "mainly driven" by the increase in the participation rate of women with low education levels who were either married or cohabiting.

While there have been "big changes" in the level of education achieved by women during the period, this only explains a small fraction of the increase in labour force participation.

It is a similar case with the increasing availability of childcare, the authors say, as although it increases the participation of women with children, "the cause of most of the increase in participation should be looked for elsewhere".