El Salvador

Education and Employment

Women are responsible for both housework and childcare. The children of most lower-class women accompany them as they work or perform domestic chores while the children of many middle-and upper-class women are left in the care of nannies. Education is compulsory through age 13, but many lower-class children do not attend school. Women [Page 466]have less educational access than men. Female school attendance rates stand at 92 percent at the primary level, 56 percent at the secondary level, and 24 percent at the tertiary level. There is a slight gender gap in the literacy rate, which is 81 percent for women and 87 percent for men.

Problems include lack of clean drinking water, urban crime, and a large gap between the wealthy landowners and the marginalized poor. Western-style clinics and hospitals exist in urban areas while rural residents rely on traveling health promoters, midwives, and traditional healers known as curanderos. Life expectancy is age 62 for women and age 57 for men. Approximately half of all El Salvadoran families live in poverty; many of these are single-parent households headed by women. Many women and children work outside the home for low wages and remain dependent on their husbands for economic support. About 50 percent of women participate in the labor force.

Women represent 49 percent of the paid nonagricultural workforce and 48 percent of professional and technical workers. Many women and children have informal employment, for example working as street food vendors. Women are the majority of garment workers in foreign-owned textile factories known as maquilas, where they work in poor conditions for low wages. Women are the majority of primary school teachers, half of secondary school teachers, and one-third of tertiary level teachers. Many families also receive remittances from family members working abroad. A gender gap remains in terms of average estimated earned income of $3,670 for women and $7,343 for men, and unemployment rates, of 3.89 percent for women and 8.45 percent for men. Women have the right to vote but are underrepresented in politics. Women hold 19 percent of parliamentary seats and 39 percent of ministerial positions. There have been no recent female heads of state.

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