Publication: Work and Family : Latin American and Caribbean Women in Search of a New Balance
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2011-01
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2013-02-25
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The paper examines the uneven progress women have made in the Latin American and Caribbean region in the last forty years. It examines issues such as health care, education, work-life balance, and family planning. The report states that while women in the region have made spectacular progress in the areas of education and health access, economic development amongst women has become flat and there is a challenge for policy makers to increase access to opportunities for women. This is especially apparent in the wage gap between men and women found throughout the region.
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“World Bank. 2011. Work and Family : Latin American and Caribbean Women in Search of a New Balance. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12489 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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While no one has a crystal ball to predict with confidence the future prices of food products, there are good reasons to believe that structural factors affecting both supply and demand, discussed in this report, have recently evolved in ways that will increase the average levels and volatility of prices above those of recent decades. Ensuring that the world's populations, and particularly vulnerable groups, are adequately fed is one of the most important contributions of the World Bank to the global public good's agenda. This report describes how the current situation is affecting countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region, including the impact on different groups within countries, and proposes strategies to best assist our client countries in responding.Publication Comparing Policy Responses to COVID-19 among Countries in the Latin American and Caribbean Region(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12-16)Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) accounts for over a quarter of the world's total cases, and a third of the total deaths, from the COVID-19 pandemic (1-3) (4). In the absence of a vaccine to prevent the transmission of the virus, LAC countries have introduced several public health, health system, and economic policies to reduce the spread and impacts of COVID-19 (4,5). However, contextual factors such as fragmented health systems, limited social safety nets, and high levels of informal employment and inequality have further challenged the response to the pandemic in many of these countries (4,6,7). Furthermore, these underlying conditions intensify the impact of COVID-19, particularly for the most disadvantaged, including the unemployed, informal, and low-income workers, many of whom live in overcrowded households (4,7). In this study, we aim to describe policy interventions in 10 LAC countries in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to compare these responses based on the experiences in two relatively high-performing jurisdictions, South Korea and Uruguay, and to support cross-jurisdictional policy learning for pandemic preparedness in the LAC region through knowledge exchange activities.
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