 A Panamanian woman wearing traditional clothing | |
| General statistics | |
|---|---|
| Maternal mortality (per 100,000) | 92 (2010) |
| Women in parliament | 19.3% (2014)[1] |
| Women over 25 withsecondary education | 63.5% (2012) |
| Women in labour force | 49.0% (2012) |
| Gender Inequality Index[2] | |
| Value | 0.392 (2021) |
| Rank | 96th out of 191 |
| Global Gender Gap Index[3] | |
| Value | 0.743 (2022) |
| Rank | 40th out of 146 |
Women in Panama are the women who live in or are fromPanama. Panamanian women, by tradition, areHispanic and they are treated as equal to men, accorded with "deference and respect".
Young women in Panama, particularly those who are single, are regarded as persons with "very high symbolic status", including giving them roles asCarnaval Queens. One particular example of such reverence of female adolescents is the celebration of theinna suid by theGuna people, which is a three-day celebration of the adolescent girls'coming of age.[4]
Some Panamanian women occupy high positions in a range of professions, including education and government service. Panama had a femalepresident as their national leader, in the person ofMireya Moscoso, who was Panama's first female president, serving from 1999 to 2004.[4]
Theliteracy rate (as of 2015) is estimated at 94.4% for females and 95.7% for males (aged 15 and over).[5]
As in other Latin American countries,cohabitation is today very common in Panama, and most children are born to unmarried women: in the 2000s, 58.5% of the children were born to cohabiting mothers, 24.4% to married mothers, and 17.1% to single mothers (not living with a partner).[6] But unlike other countries in the region, births outside of marriage have been the majority for decades: in the 1970s, only 30.4% of children were born inside of marriage.[6] Thetotal fertility rate (TFR) is 2.38/children born per woman (as of 2014).[7]
Domestic violence is a problem in the country. Panama enactedLey No.38 del 2001 against domestic violence.[8] In 2013, the country enacted Law 82 - Typifying Femicide and Violence Against Women (Ley 82 - Tipifica el Femicidio y la Violencia contra las Mujeres) a comprehensive law againstviolence against women.[9]
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