In a powerful domino effect transcending government administrations, key labour programmes and policies are being reshaped with a gender perspective, based largely on a 2024 UN Women report on women’s economic empowerment (WEE) scenarios in Uruguay.
Supported by the Women Count regional programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, and building on the 2017 regional flagship report Progress of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, the study focuses on three barriers to women’s employment: sticky floors, broken stairs and glass ceilings.1 Among its key findings, captured in an infographic, are that most women in Uruguay are in the “sticky floor” scenario, with 30% dedicated exclusively to household care and domestic work, 25% unemployed, 60% informally employed and 30% ‘underemployed’;2 women in the “broken stairs” scenario generally have higher educational levels than men, but are paid on average 19% less while still shouldering the bulk of unpaid care and domestic work; meanwhile, women in higher education and income brackets, 30% of whom are employed in the public sector face the “glass ceiling”, preventing their career progression, as well as a 16% wage gap.
This study was a key input for a 2024 consultancy commissioned by Uruguay’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MTSS), via its National Employment Directorate (DINAE), to design innovative measures to promote women’s economic empowerment by facilitating their labour market integration. The consultancy’s author, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences professor Isabel Pérez de Sierra, calls the WEE scenario study a cornerstone of her consultancy that provided quantitative evidence on women’s situation and a theoretical framework that allowed for a more nuanced and targeted approach.
“It resonated and I found it very impactful and necessary to understand three trajectories … as well as the limitations of policies for women in each of them,” says Pérez de Sierra.
Using the WEE study as a guide, she recommended tailored adjustments to existing MTSS employment programmes to address the specific needs of women facing each of the three outlined scenarios and advocated for these programmes to be reshaped with a strong gender perspective. Her final report was presented in November 2024 and was positively received by the administration at the time.
When the incoming administration took office in March 2025, it expressed its openness and took the report into account.
Maira Mandressi, with DINAE/MTSS, says although the incoming Government had already expressed its commitment to gender equality during the election campaign, and it was defined as a priority for the Government, the UN Women study and subsequent consultancy contributed to the construction of a practical road map to introduce the necessary changes.
“It’s about how to bring broad ideas down to earth. That’s when this type of technical input – which also includes programme and policy evaluations, with practical and concrete proposals – is so useful,” she explains.
One of the recommendations the Government has already accepted is the need to reorient the Ministry’s Productive Investment Programme (PIP) – which provides small entrepreneurship grants for the most vulnerable segments of the population that have trouble accessing formal sources of financing – to more systematically integrate gender considerations.
According to Mandressi, who runs the PIP, 75% of its beneficiaries are currently women, but the programme was never designed with a gender perspective, which she acknowledges as “a weakness”. However, she says DINAE now plans to reshape it to include strategies to address women beneficiaries’ caregiving needs, amp-up skills training, and prioritize funding for projects for women in non-traditional employment.
Her colleague Laura Triaca, Head of the Specialized Gender Unit at the MTSS, says the commitment goes even deeper, and is expected to cascade into further changes in labour policies and the national care system, improvements in working conditions for women caregivers and their recognition and incorporation in the country’s pension system, as well as other social security benefits.
A Tripartite Commission on Equal Opportunities and Employment Conditions (CTIOTE), comprised of workers, employers and the Government, via the MTSS and the Ministry of Social Development, was reinstalled and Triaca says it will work on creating new gender-responsive laws and policies, such as new laws on domestic work and sexual harassment in the workplace.
The National Work Directorate (DINATRA) has also signed an agreement with the National Integral Care System (SINC) to incorporate caregiving in the next national round of salary negotiations in July. Triaca says there are also plans to promote and expand the number of Always Centres which provide free care for workers’ children, elderly dependents and people with disabilities.
Pérez de Sierra says alleviating the care burden is essential to enable women’s employment, given that 1 in 4 women aged 14–24 in Uruguay leave their studies or the labour market due to caregiving responsibilities, compared to only 1 in 10 men the same age. She says having a more gender-sensitive approach also will require reconsidering training programmes for isolated rural women to ensure they have more opportunities to meet other women and exchange knowledge and experiences, which is one of the surest routes to sustained empowerment.
The Ministry also organized a WEE activity in March, where the author of the UN Women report, Soledad Salvador, presented the study.
“It’s an auspicious moment, because consultancies don’t always result in changes so quickly,” says Pérez de Sierra. “I think it’s a really important moment for gender-sensitive employment policies.”
1“Sticky floors” refers to scenarios where workers – primarily women – have low (or only primary) education and low wages, and face discriminatory employment patterns that keep them in jobs with lower pay and mobility; “broken stairs” refer to worker with secondary education and intermediate incomes who lack protection networks that would allow them to take a significant leap towards better empowerment and risk slipping to the “sticky floor”; while “glass ceilings” refer to the invisible barriers that women with higher education and incomes (and people from other marginalized groups) face when trying to climb the corporate ladder, especially when pursuing managerial and executive roles.
2The women say they want to engage in more paid work or hours, but cannot find such employment.
