To Manage Latin America's Demographic Shifts, Support Women
To Manage Latin America's Demographic Shifts, Support Women
The changes underway are the result of positive trends, though governments can do more, writes AS/COA CEO and President Susan Segal in Americas Quarterly.
This article is adapted from Americas Quarterly special report on Latin America’s demographic transformation.
When I attended Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York in the 1970s, the percentage of women MBA students was only about 5-10 percent. Upon graduation, Citibank hired me as one of just a handful of women international trainees and sent me to Venezuela. People in Caracas were wonderful, but there were very few women in the workforce—and the men seemed a bit mystified by my life choices, asking me if I wouldn’t have preferred to stay in the United States, get married and have children.
The truth is, all of our countries have changed a lot over the last 50-plus years—for the better, when it comes to opportunities for women. Just as in the United States, women in Latin America now account for a majority of students at universities. Today, about six in 10 women of college age in the region are enrolled in higher education.
Read the full article on the Americas Quarterly website. | Subscribe to AQ.
