DC Accepted Papers Paper:
Gender Discrimination in the Workplace in Colombia
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Sex based discrimination is a common practice in the workplace in Colombia despite constitutional and legal protections against discrimination. To this day, Colombian women remain less economically active, they continue to struggle to land professional jobs and earn about 25% less than Colombian men. Research has exposed widespread discriminatory practices against women in the workplace in Colombia. Furthermore, it has shown that from equally qualified individuals, most Colombian companies prefer to hire and promote men over women.
According to the United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Colombia is committed to eliminating all forms of discrimination against women. Their constitutional and legal framework is clearly aligned with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). However, the international and domestic legal framework has not been enough to address the issue of sex-based discrimination in the workplace. The main causes for discrimination against women have little or nothing to do with lack of legal provisions. Sex discrimination practices are primarily caused by deeply rotted and normalized practices of female oppression, cultural family life practices structured by gender, and the common business and social believes that pregnancy limits productivity which leads to the presumption that a worker is someone who does not get pregnant. A survey from the Pew Research Center (2013) shows that women experience more family-related career interruptions than men. Consequently, many employers decide not to hire or promote female workers to avoid liabilities related to parental leave or unscheduled paid time-off due to potential family emergencies.
The analysis of this paper revises Colombian current laws and policies to determine how they are or are not influencing individual and social behavior toward promoting gender equality in the workplace. In addition, the paper does a comparative analysis with the US current employment regulations as well as constitutional and legal framework on equal protection.
