Women in Trinidad and Tobago are women who were born in, who live in, or are from Trinidad and Tobago. Depending from which island the women came, they may also be called Trinidadian women or Tobagonian women respectively.Trinidad and Tobago, everyculture.com Women in Trinidad and Tobago excel in various industries and occupations, including micro-enterprise owners, "lawyers, judges, politicians, civil servants, journalists, and calypsonians." Women still dominate the fields of "domestic service, sales, and some light manufacturing."
By participating in Trinidad and Tobago's version of the Carnival, Trinidadian and Tobagonian women demonstrate their "assertive sexuality." Some of them have also been active in so-called Afro-Christian sects and in running the "sou-sou informal rotating credit associations."
Gender roles in Trinidad and Tobago are influenced primarily by legacies of patriarchy and colonialism. Baptiste asserts that historical views of race and colonialism impact Trinidadian culture in such a way that are often excluded from Western feminist studies. "Caribbean gender theory has to wrangle with the boundedness of patriarchy at the same time as it tussles with the barnacles of colonialism and imperialism." Gender performances in Trinidad and Tobago occupy three distinct spaces: physical, social, and cultural. Baptiste argues that the physical, public spaces represent a "postcolonial essentialist collage" in which performances are gendered by the socialization of gender roles according to very essentialist views of men and women. Many public spaces display African imagery, primarily from Nigeria and Ghana because these nations are still Trinidad and Tobago's closest political allies and cultural beacons. These social spaces provide an outlet in the face of a country struggling with increasing crime rates against women.
Education on average, from primary to tertiary levels of schooling, girls were outperforming or had higher enrollment levels than boys in Trinidad and Tobago. This pattern had been observed for the preceding 20 years or so.
In primary schools, girls showed a lower drop-out rate and repeater rate, and score higher than boys on the SEA examination in 1997. In 2015, girls constituted of approximately two-thirds of the top students in the Second Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination and CAPE.
In secondary schools, despite the fact that most secondary schools are structured based on a stratified system of prestige, girls consistently outperformed boys in within-school and national testing as of 1997. In particular, girls were more likely to take the examination and across the Caribbean, girls achieved higher CXC results in English, history and social studies.
There is a high enrollment rate of females in tertiary learning institutions—about 65 percent of total students enrolled at University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus in 2009/2010 were female.
Economy Women generally enjoyed the same legal rights as men, including employment, education, and inheritance rights. No laws or regulations require equal pay for equal work. While equal pay for men and women in public service was the rule rather than the exception, both the government and NGOs noted considerable disparities in pay between men and women in the private sector, particularly in agriculture.
Workforce participation As of 2016, 60% of Trinidadian women participate in the labour to force, compared to 81% participation from the male population. Historically, female labour force participation rates in Trinidad and Tobago are lower than male participation rates. Over the past two decades (1990–2010), this disparity between these rates has been decreasing. Following the recession of the 1980s when the labour force participation rate dipped to 55.6 percent, the rate has hovered around 62 percent over the last decade. The size of the labour force has increased over the years, moving from 480,000 persons in 1987 to 619,000 persons in 2010—an annual average growth rate of 1.1 percent. Even though males continue to be predominant, the share of females in the labour force has steadily increased moving from 31.8 percent in 1980 to 41.4 percent in 2010.
Generally, women are dominant in the service industry and as clerks and associate professionals. There is some level of equality at the professional level, however men have a greater presence at senior levels. Women whose highest level of education attained was primary were 13% more likely to participate, while those with secondary level attainment were 14% more likely to participate. Women with tertiary level education had a probability of participation of 8%.
Trinidad and Tobago's female labour is also lower than some of its (commonly compared to) neighbouring countries. From 2000 to 2009, Barbados and Jamaica's rates averaged 65.1 percent and 57.4 percent, respectively.
According to the 2012 National Gender Policy, despite high levels of education and employment, women are still the primary care-givers in the society with the majority of the responsibility for raising children, performing housework, taking care of the sick, the aging and elderly, and the disabled, and managing many of community-based organizations.
Gender wage gap In 2016, Trinidad and Tobago ranked 91st in the world (out of 114 countries) in wage equality between men and women for similar work. Research shows that there are substantial wage differences between men and women in Trinidad and Tobago. While women account for the largest entry into both the workforce and education, a 2015 study shows that their wages are still less than men. On average, women earn US$22,656 a year, while for that same period, men earn US$41,527. In the private sector, it appears that female workers, regardless of their position along the wage distribution, face a similar degree of discrimination. At the aggregate level, there is a significant difference between male and female wages. Investigation showed that the demographics with the highest levels of discrimination were in the age groups 35–44, income levels $3,000–$5,999 and private sector employment vs public sector. As of 2015, the wage gap is found to be larger in the private sector than the public sector, and the gap is larger at the lower end of the wage distribution. In the private sector, at the 10th percentile the gender wage gap is 25.9 percent compared to 12.0 percent at the 90th percentile.
Trinidad and Tobago has ratified several conventions related to labour and workforce standards including the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions including the Tripartite Consultation (International Labour Standards) Convention, 1976 (No. 144), the Industrial Relations Act (1972), the Retrenchment and Severance Payments Act (1985), the Minimum Wage Act (1976), and most recently, the Equal Opportunity Act (2000). In particular, the Equal Opportunity Act (EOA) prohibits an employer or prospective employer from discriminating against an employee or a prospective employee because of their status (race, disability, ethnicity, marital status, religion, sex, or geographical origin). However, currently, Trinidad and Tobago does not have any legislation pertaining to equal pay for work of equal value.
According to the National Council of State Administration Secretaries Research Corporation, there are six key factors that influence this wage gap: occupation, human capital, work experience, career interruption, motherhood and industry sector.CONSAD Research Corporation. (2009). An analysis of the reasons for the disparity in wages between men and women. US Department of Labor. Pittsburgh, PA. Retrieved from Even with these in mind, Mahabir & Ramrattan assert that discrimination based on sex is apparent when critically examining similar scenarios affecting both men and women. The greatest disparity comes from the fact that married women or those in common law marriages still earn disproportiante wages compared to men in the same scenario. While Trinidad and Tobago is ranked 50 out of 148 countries by the Gender Inequality Index,Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2012). Closing the gender gap: Act now. Paris, France: OECD Publishing. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/gender/Executive%20Summary.pdf the major factors that influence workplace disparities are inherently gendered. This is generally thought to be due to a combination of a strong patriarchal "old boys" network which favors each other regarding employment and wages, and a historical and cultural background that does not place as much value on women's work as it does men's.
Property rights The Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago prohibits all forms of discrimination on the grounds of gender. The Trinidad and Tobago Succession Act was passed by Parliament in 1981 and Legislation on Property Rights was also passed, revising provisions on real property and women's property rights. As such, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago affirms women's rights to property ownership. Although there exists no legal restrictions to women's access to land tenure, Trinidad and Tobago still has a gender disparity of distribution of land ownership, with some studies indicating that only 14% of private land owners are female. Cited in Johan-Boodram 2011 It is suggested that this is predominantly male dominated due to the customary regimes like patriarchal inheritance practices.
Prostitution and sex workers' rights
Under the Sexual Offences Act, prostitution is illegal in Trinidad and Tobago, and those found guilty of an offence are liable of up to five years imprisonment. This includes person that "lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution" and those who are "aiding, abetting or compelling the prostitution". Authorities continue to monitor, investigate, and prosecute major operators believed to be engaged in soliciting for prostitution.
Family Cohabitation/common-law relationships Cohabitation is legal, and common-law relationships can be found to be legally protected under the Cohabitational Relationship Act of 2000. The Act empowers the court to make orders for maintenance for a common-law spouse as well orders in respect of their rights to property provided that the common-law relationship has lasted for at least five years; or there is a child or children of the relationship; or the party has made substantial contributions to the common-law relationship.
Under the Cohabitational Relationship Act of 2000, after the death of a common-law spouse who has left no valid will, the surviving common-law spouse or cohabitant is entitled to benefit from the estate of deceased once they lived with that person in a common-law relationship for at least five years immediately before the deceased died. The surviving common-law spouse is entitled to benefit from the estate of the deceased in the following ways: where there are no children and no surviving legally married spouse, the common-law spouse is entitled to the whole estate, or; where the deceased has a child or children and no surviving legally-married spouse, the surviving common-law spouse is entitled to half of the estate, or; where the deceased has a surviving legally-married spouse, the surviving common-law spouse is only entitled to a portion of the deceased's estate acquired during the common-law relationship
Marriage As of June 2017, the legal age of marriage in Trinidad and Tobago is 18. Prior to 2017, four Acts regulated the age of marriage in Trinidad and Tobago, leading to a number of inconsistencies: The Marriage Act of 1923, which governs Christian and civil marriages, set the minimum age of marriage at 18 years but allowed exceptions on religious grounds. The Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act set the minimum age of marriage at 12 for girls and 16 for boys. The Hindu Marriage Act set the minimum age of marriage at 14 for girls and 18 for boys,