The situation of women in Latin America and the Caribbean has improved since 1995, when 189 countries signed the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Nonetheless progress has been mixed, heterogeneous, and inequality. Discrimination continues to affect many women in the region, preventing the achievement of full autonomy, which is fundamental to ensuring the respect, exercise and enjoyment of their human rights and to achieve equality.

Traditional economic models that are centered on the market hide an important part of productive and reproductive processes that take place inside households. Over recent years, unpaid work and its measurement have become a key concern in different regional and international agreements. The resolution of the Nineteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians expands the concept of work to any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or to provide services for use by others or for own use, recognizing in this way the production of goods and services inside households.

Though the gender gap in unemployment has decreased by nearly 1 percentage point between the years 2000 and 2012, five out of every ten women are still outside the labor market.

The existence of laws against violence has produced important advances in countries where they exist and has sent a message to victims that they are no longer alone, that the State supports them.

Today, half of Latin-American and Caribbean women are still out of labor market. Only five out of ten women of working age participate in the labor force, as opposed to eight in ten men.

“Gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women's ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men” (General Recommendation number 19 of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women).

The gender-based digital divide refers to differences between women and men in the access to computers and the use of electronic devices and the internet (ICT). In Latin America, women are equal to men in access to computers and in the internet connection at home.

According to UNESCO, 45.2% of the people doing research in science and technology in Latin America and the Caribbean are women, a higher percentage than the average of other regions (Oceania 39.2%, Africa 34.5%, Europe 34%, Asia 18.9%,).

Today in Latin American and the Caribbean live more than 40 million people over age 65, about 7% of the total population. In 2050 one of every five persons will be over 65 years. In the countries of the region where data is available, the percentage of women 60 years and over without incomes of their own exceeds at least twice the percentage for men of the same age group.

Abortion is permitted in three countries of Latin America; in 11 countries it is realized under certain circumstances.