The impact of the human capital of women on the economic development of Guatemala

Abstract

Emerging markets are amongst some of the fastest-growing economies on the globe. However, they must enhance human capital to enable a nation's long-term development. The theory states that the increase in workforce participation highly impacts GDP per capita. Additionally, developing markets can grow even further if they increase women's rate in the labour market. The paper aims to determine the main obstacles for women in the job market and identify the impact of female participation on national development by conducting a case study analysis for Guatemala. The authors decided to apply a data triangulation approach and chose a mixture of three sources of data: documents, archival records, and interviews. Guatemala holds an unfavourable rank in the Global Gender Gap Index. The findings demonstrate that the workforce rate is increasing but still severely lower than the men's rate. In Guatemala, the high number of women in tertiary education does not translate into higher female workforce participation. The main issues are cultural stereotypes, limited access to the job market, and difficulties with combining work and childcare.

Keywords

• women's workforce participation
• human capital
• gender gap
• gender equality