Cuba Reforms Hitting Women Hard

[naaman fletcher]

“I don’t know what to do,” a 53-year-old Havana woman told IPS, after finding herself for the first time ever without the security of a state job.

Another woman, 39 and highly qualified, remembers the times when she sought an executive position in the tourism industry: “Nobody said as much to me, but I heard that I didn’t get the job because I have a young daughter.”

As is the case with women around the world, despite the fact that generations of Cuban women are well-educated, they continue to lag behind in the most stable, best-remunerated sectors of the economy, says sociologist Mayra Espina Prieto in her findings on poverty for the Centre for Psychological and Sociological Research (CIPS).

According to official sources, women earn wages that are equivalent to 80 to 85 percent of what men earn, for reasons such as fewer days worked because of having to care for a family member, above all children and the elderly.

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=45357