An Analysis of the Socio-Demographic Differences in Ecuadorian Economically Active Population between Genders

Gender equity and development are common issues worldwide. International Organizations through their specialized programs and the states through their public policies have made high efforts to accomplish these goals raised internationally and locally. However, it is necessary to know the perception of the population about the achievement of these goals, and to influence the economic agents who are responsible of decision making. The present qualitative research work determines the social-demographic profile of the Ecuadorian economically active population and identifies the main characteristics by gender: racial group, activity and inactivity conditions, education, employment, poverty, and job satisfaction. The obtained results show the differences in variables related to activity and inactivity conditions, use of technology, education, and employment. The results pretend to be a useful source of information in the creation of public policies focused on poverty reduction and gender equity.


Introduction
Eradicating poverty, promoting universal education, gender equity, women's empowerment and equitable development are some of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals of 2000.In Ecuador, these objectives have been developed under the National Plan for Well-being (Senplades et al, 2014;Naciones Unidas, 2000).According to its executors, it has achieved remarkable results in the majority of its objectives and goals.Therefore, in order to determine the perception of the Ecuadorian population about these kind of issues, the objective of the present research work is to determine the demographic, financial, educational and social profile of men and women between 15 and 64 years old and remark the common characteristics and main differences between these two groups and relate these results to the development objectives planned by the government.The Employment, Underemployment, and Unemployment Survey (ENEMDU, 2015) has been taken as a reference in the study.It is important to mention that it uses standardized variables of International Labor Organization, making the results comparable internationally.The analyzed variables are: gender, age, marital status, language, racial group, place of birth, place of residence, natural region, educational attainment, activity and inactivity condition, activity branch, job satisfaction, training, technology use and access, income poverty and extreme income poverty (Organización Mundial del Comercio, 1998).This qualitative research used bidirectional contingency tables to identify the differences between men and women.The obtained results will be useful to contrast the official data with people's perceptions.It is expected that it influences the design of new economic and social public policies focused on reducing gender parity mainly in paid and unpaid employment, technological access and usage, training and other interesting information obtained from this research.

Gender Equity and Development
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Objectives agenda highlight the need of promoting gender equity and women autonomy (Naciones Unidas, 2017).The achieved results which are recognized as the most successful movement against poverty according to this organization, show that gender parity persists and that the advancement of this process has been dissimilar (Naciones Unidas, 2015).The main objective of Millennium Goals is social development, concept related to the research and achievement of higher living standards based on social investment generating a progressive social change and well-being, participation, and the relationship between the human action and the related policies (Midgley, 2014).This concept also has other determinant and related factors such as: investment, well-being and focused policies related to social capital, employment, education, and economy, among others that have an impact on the intended equitable development.Therefore, a brief analysis of these contextual factors of development to be followed by a segmentation by gender is necessary.

Economy
The economic variations are one of the most important effects generated in our environment mainly in terms of employment and health (Bambra, 2010).Although employment is an effective mean of income generation with a direct implication on the standard of living of people, and the main source of incomes in the western families, its importance has become a priority to the world since 1995 when it has become part of the UN Millennium Goals and International Labor Organization.

Employment
According to Escribà Agüir and Jaime Fons Martinez, labor conditions, organization and environment affect mainly to vulnerable groups such as women (Escribà Agüir & Fons Martinez, 2014).It is know that it is also influenced by labor conditions.Jobs related to force and hand labor promote gender parity in labor and the difference between salaries (Castaño et al., 1999).However, ICTs are means to reduce these differences by improving the labor opportunities for women (OECD, 2007) requiring a particular education level and specific skills that are not related to gender such as: teamwork and knowledge (Carnoy, 2002).Employment, incomes, and development are also influenced by education, training, and according to Suárez Lantaron (2013) it is necessary to maintain the employment as a mean of social development based on abilities, skills and attributes that promote individuals (Suárez Lantaron, 2014).A similar approach is presented by Rentería & Malvezzi when he suggests that employability means "the provision and maintenance of people in the labor market taking notice of their capabilities, productivity and performance" (Rentería Pérez & Malvezzi, 2008) Summing this up, education influences people's capabilities and attitudes.Training and personal predisposition to learn will be key factors to achieve higher levels of employability (Formichella & London, 2012).
However, it is also mentioned that an adequate education is not a guarantee or access to employment.There are some contextual factors that support this achievement.The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) suggests that economic growth should be accompanied by adequate policies to reduce unemployment and social inequity (CEPAL, 2013).

Maternity
It is considered a natural factor that influences gender inequity.It has been considered a cause in the persistence of wage gap between men and women.Currently, women between 20 and 30 years old tend to quit their jobs to raise their children, and when they grow up, women come back to labor market.However, when they return to work, they find a lapse between their professional profile and their skills, and it is a long-term consequence the fact that they were not working.It is an important lapse between them and their male and single childless female competitors (Tito, 2016).
Vázquez Parra, Arredondo Trapero, & de la Garza (2016) suggest that there are some socio-economic and cultural factors that limit the competitive development of a woman being one of them, the procreation (Vásquez Parra et al, 2016).Even research works done by developed countries state that gender inequity can be perceived in the labor market and this parity can be attributed to different impacts of paternity in women and men.Certain authors (Altonji & Blank, 1999), (Blau & Lawrence, 2000), y (Bertrand, 2010) including (Kleven & Landais, 2017) advocate that women's incomes are more penalized than men's and that is attributed to maternity (Kleven & Landais, 2017).
In this sense and in line with the Gender Disparity Report 2016, governments are called upon to create macro public policies to improve women's access to education and their economic participation.The gap between men and women in general has narrowed.It is said that the health gap has been exceeded in most countries over 80%.However, the education gap and the economic participation of women remains important.This means that women continue to have more difficulties in accessing education and that they continue to receive less income or economic compensation than men in the labor fields.The gender disparity in Latin America and the Caribbean is 30% on average and of the 25 countries considered within this region, Ecuador is among the countries with the lowest gender disparity, this ranks Ecuador in the 9th position, which is encouraging.However, the same report recognizes that, despite Ecuador's efforts to reduce gender disparity, the country has advanced in all criteria except in the category of professionals and technical workers.
Several recent studies evidence the relationship between economic performance and gender parity.Therefore, reducing gender parity is important as it will have a positive effect on a country's economic growth.There are critical dimensions in which work is required such as the economic participation, education, health and politics.One of the advantages of reducing the gender disparity in economic participation might be, for example, an increase in the labor force and greater profit sharing.However, the integration of women into the formal economy is not the sole responsibility of the government, but of the private sector, which must be concerned with the internal structure and composition of workers and commit themselves to incorporate women in all organizations levels (WEF, 2016).
In Ecuador, which is currently ranked 40th in the world ranking on the gender gap in 2016 published by the World Economic Forum, 2016 and according to Millennium Goals Report Ecuador 2014, it is stated that 20 out of 21 targets were met and developed according to the National Plan of Well-Being in the objectives 2, 3, and 4 respectively including: gender inequalities in education and employment (Senplades et al, 2014).Despite the great advances in social development in Ecuador, a gap still exist according to the ethnic self-identification for example, the indigenous community shows lower percentages of development in education, mortality rate, satisfaction with the employment activity status, and so on (Castellano et al, 2017) Also, there is a relationship between the level of instruction and suicide.(Sarmiento et al, 2016) Based on what has been referenced, by means of a qualitative analysis of the data compiled by the ENEMDU 2015 survey (INEC, 2015); a national employment, unemployment and underemployment survey carried out by the Ecuadorian Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC), several important aspects are intended to be determined.Those are the demographic, economic, educational and social profile of men and women between 15 and 64 years of age in order to observe the existing characteristics and differences between these two groups to relate them to the development objectives planned by the state.The variables analyzed are: gender, age, marital status, language, racial group, place of birth, place of residence, natural region, level of education, activity status and inactivity, branch of activity, job satisfaction, scientific update, access and use of technology, poverty based on low income and extreme poverty.The results of this study will be useful to contrast official data with perception, which is expected to influence the design of new public social and economic policies aimed to reduce inequality between men and women, mainly in labor matters, unpaid employment, and use of technology, training and other interesting data obtained from this analysis.

Method
The study uses as a reference statistical information from the 2015 National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment (INEC, 2015).Given the objective of the present study, a descriptive analysis is done, with the former showing the frequency and percentages of the variables under investigation: gender, age, language, racial group, civil status, place of birth and residence, natural region, level of instruction, condition of activity and inactivity, branch of activity, job satisfaction, training, access and usage of technology, income poverty, and extreme poverty.The statistical analysis shows the frequency and percentages of the variables used in the investigation.We used contingency tables in order to explore the relationship between the variables under investigation and gender of the people in this age group (15-64).
We investigated the relationship between "Sex" and the other variables under investigation with the use of chi-square test (χ2).In order to extract the results of the chi-square test we used the statistical software SPAD v.4.5 offered by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Aegean.

Results
It is observed that 69.89% of men and 70.64% of women are located in urban areas.30.11% of men and 29.63% of women are in rural areas (Table 1).It is observed that 32.75% of men and 32.90% of women are married, 3.99 % of men and 8.71% of women are separated, 1.36 % of men and 2.76% of women are divorced, 0.63% of men and 2.41% of women are widowed.24.66% of men and 24.11% of women are common law and 36.61% of men and 29.11% of women are single (Table 3).In terms of language, the vast majority of men (92.18%) and women (91.94%) speak only Spanish.0.07 % of men and 0.13 % of women speak only native indigenous language.5.53 % of men and 5.70 % of women speak native indigenous language and Spanish, and 2.02 % of men and 2.01 % of women speak Spanish and a foreign language (Table 5).Regarding racial groups, 7.01% of men and 7.14% of women consider themselves as indigenous.A 1.32% of men and 1.29 % of women consider themselves as Afro-Ecuadorian.However, 81.22% of men and 81.76% of women consider themselves as a Mestizo (Table 6).65.13% of men and 64.73% of women state that they were born in the same city of the survey, while 33.70%of men and 33.96% of women say that they were born in another place of the country.1.18 % of men and 1.31% of women state that they were born in another country (Table 7). ) is that they came with the family and the third one is studies (4.51%).While for women the main reason to stay in the city (54.50%) is that they came with their family.The second reason (10.95%) is because of marriage and (5.39%) is due to studies (Table 8).
76.43% of men in inactive conditions are students, 9.20% of them are disabled, 8.54% face other conditions.Finally, 4.06% has retired pension.With regard to women, 63.84% of them are in inactive conditions (housewives).28.74% are students and 2.81% are disabled (Table 9).In the labor satisfaction variable, 71.93% of men and 76.73% of women are satisfied with their jobs, while 16.47% of men and 14.04% of women are not satisfied with it.8.96% of men are not happy but satisfied and 6.90% of women have the same feeling.2.46% of man and 2.24% of women are totally in discontent (Table 10).With regard to computer use, 53.98% of men and 51.18% of women used a computer in the last year (Table 14), while 55.7% of men and 53.22% of women used internet at the same period (Table 15).16).
There are four regions in Ecuador, Coastal Region, Mountain Region, the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands.44.04% of men belongs to the Mountain Region, 50.84% belongs to the Coastal Region, 4.93% belong to the Amazon Region and only 0.19% belongs to the Galapagos Islands.Regarding women, 46.14% belongs to the Mountain Region, 49.04% to the Coastal Region, 4.64% to the Amazon Region and 0.18% to the Galapagos Islands (Table 17).The survey show that 81.72% of men are not in poverty and 18.28% of men consider themselves in poverty, while 79.59% of women are not in poverty and 20.41% consider themselves in poverty (Table 18).In extreme poverty case, 6.36% of men and 7.26% of women consider themselves indigent (Table 19).25.91% of men and 19.61% of women are dedicated to agriculture, farming, livestock and fishing.15.49% of men and 23.53% of women are dedicated to business and vehicle fixing.12.31% of men is dedicated to house building activities.11.79% of men is dedicated to the manufacturing industry and although women also do it, their value is 9.42%.9.77% of men is dedicated to storage and transport.Other activity branches with important value to women are: lodging and cooking (10.18%), teaching (7.79%), and activities of domestic services (6.50%) (Table 21).

The Chi-Square Test
The correlation between the variable "Sex" and the other variables under investigation was studied with the use of chi-square test (χ2).The correlations in which the Valor Test (V.Test) is greater than or equal to two are statistically interesting.The larger than two the V.Test, the greater the correlation between two variables (Morineau, 1984). Sex

Conclusion
Even though the efforts seeking a fairer global society concerning equitable development between men and women, and the results achieved, gender parity is still present.The present research work determines the economic, educational, social and demographic profile of Ecuadorian women and men between 15 and 64 years old aiming to observe the characteristics and differences that exist between them.It also seeks to describe the concordance with the national reports related to this topic and describes the relationship between the variables under analysis and their characteristics by gender to conclude about it.In the framework of this study, a descriptive analysis was realized, and also a chi-square test that confirmed the results of the descriptive analysis (Sarmiento et al, 2016).
In the urban area is the main place of residence regardless the gender.The vast majority of the population consider themselves as mestizos.However, there are two minority groups who consider themselves as indigenous and montubios.In reference to the internal mobility, the percentage between men and women is similar.However, employment is the primary reason of migration for men.In contrast, the primary reason for women is the family.
The main language of the population is Spanish.There is a minority of the population who speaks Spanish and an indigenous language and Spanish and a foreign language.The level of schooling is also similar between male and female in primary and secondary school, but women are up in the indicators related to higher education with respect to men.
Regarding activity conditions, there are big differences in terms of gender.Less than half of men believe that they have an adequate job, while the fifth part of women consider they have an adequate job.Among economically inactive male, they represent a fifth of the total male population.On the other hand, women in this condition, represent almost a half of the total of this group.Finally, in the indicator of unpaid job, women duplicate the percentage of men.
Regarding the economically active population, the vast majority of men is dedicated to farming, hunting, forestry, and fishing, followed by sale and vehicle fixing, building industry, and transportation and warehousing.The main branches of activity for women are: repair and sale of vehicles, agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing, accommodation activities and food service, teaching and domestic services correspondingly.The majority of inactive men are students, while in the case of women under the same condition, more than a half are housekeepers.
In relation to access and use of technology more than a half of the population have used a computer over the last twelve months.On the other hand, three quarters of the population own an activated cellphone, but less than a half own a smartphone.
Overall, gender differences in variables related to labor, unpaid work, use of technology, mobility which are observed and might represent an indicator of the gender parity remain (INEC, 2015).

Table 1
83% of men, and 27.98% of women are between the ages of 15 and 24 years old.23.32% of men, and 24.40% of women are between 25 and 34 years old.20.29% of men and 20.84% of women are between 35 and 44 years old.15.81% of men, and 15.99% of women are between 45 and 54 years old.Finally, 10.76% of men, and 10.79% of women are between 55 and 64 years old (Table2).

Table 3 .
Marital status of men have post -primary education and a similar percentage (29.06%) of women have the same level of education.26.72% of men have elementary education, instead 25.70% of women have the same level.16.63 % of men have higher education and 19.18% of women have this level (Table4).

Table 6 .
How the subjects identify themselves

Table 7 .
Place of birth

Table 8 .
Reasons to change residence

Table 10 .
The level of happiness at work 78.45% of men have an activated cellphone, while only 73.27% of women have it, the difference is 5.18%.40.28% of men and 38.6% of women have a smartphone (table12 and 13).

Table 12 .
Have an activated cellular phone

Table 14 .
Have used a computer in the past 12 months

Table 15 .
Have used the Internet in the past 12 months

Table 16 .
Have you been in a training course in the las 12 months Ecuador show a low rate index; however, while 11.94% of men have attended a training course over the last year, only 8.54% of women attended it.91.46% of women have not attended any particular training course in the last year (Table

Table 17 .
Native Region

Table 18 .
Income poverty