Bolivia

This note aims to provide information and analysis as a basis for a better understanding of the challenges and constraints of achieving gender equality in Bolivia, with a special focus on the intersectionality between gender and ethnicity. Combining and analyzing existing evidence and new data, it seeks to document gender-specific disparities in development outcomes, highlight opportunities and constraints to women’s empowerment, and identify areas in which continuing knowledge gaps are particularly important to understand and address gender inequalities. The analysis in this note suggests that: there is important progress in development outcomes for women, in their access to services and to decision-making spaces; the intersection of gender and ethnicity deepens the gaps in some development outcomes in Bolivia; women feel discriminated against in different aspects of their lives, in particular indigenous women. Not having access to economic opportunities limit women’s agency; and while women with higher levels of agency are able to more fully take advantage of existing opportunities.