Option 3.

How does the intersection of race, gender, and age create unequal opportunities
for individuals in Latin America? What type of policies should be implemented in order to
close the gendered, generational and racial gaps?
Historically in Latin America there has been a systematic exclusion or denial of access of
opportunities to women, people of mixed race, and ethnic origins and is seen to have high
correlation with the impoverished in the general region as explain in Frankos textbook on page
385. The textbook continues on with the discussion of racial issues indicating that in some areas
there are very clear divisions between the poorest people being predominantly black while the
wealthiest people being predominantly white. In some areas such as the example given in
Frankos textbook about Bolivia, the indigenous males will earn wages that average 41% higher
per hour than what a nonindigenous male will earn. This discrepancy seen in the wages earn in
Bolivia is not an isolated tendency for racial inequality, the same discrepancies can be seen in
many other countries in Latin America.
This discrimination and exclusion however is not limited simply by race but also by
gender. In Latin America women are often denied many of the same rights as men have had
historically, they will be paid lower wages, and are less likely to receive the same level of
education that men do. Furthermore while women as a whole are discriminated against, for some
women the discrimination goes even further than just gender discrimination. Racial
discrimination also significantly affects women as well. In Frankos textbook in chapter eleven it
is explain that only 3 percent of Afro Brazilian women will have fifteen or more years of
education compared to white Brazilian women who average 12 percent of them attending school
for fifteen or more years. Frankos textbook stressed that women carried many burdens of society,
which further solidified the inequalities they faced. On page 486 there is a great quote to help
better identify more precisely what women were up against. Women faced a triple burden: they
are responsible for the reproductive work of the home, enter the workplace as secondary income
earnings, and tend to be the central force in community organizing. Many women and even
young girls are limited by these duties and sometimes are forced to be fully devoted to only
domestic duties eliminating the possibility for their education and job prospects. The statistics
that were shared in the textbook show that the intersection of both race and gender has resulted
in mass discrimination in the Latin American region and can largely be tied back to colonization
patterns.
When Latin American regions began to be colonized the wealth distribution was very
small, only a small fraction of the population had any assets and the majority of the population
was very poor and struggling to survive. The small portion of the population with wealth were
mostly white and structured by patriarchy therefore much of the racial and gender inequalities
stem from colonization in the 1800s.
Age inequality also runs rampant among regions in Latin America.
Age has created unequal opportunities for individuals in Latin America in part because of the
types of economic markets they have to work with. A majority of the Latin American job
prospects demand working striking long hours under stressful conditions. Often times labor in
Latin America will be very physically demanding due to the large agricultural market seen in this
region. Therefore these physically demanding jobs often go to younger generations that are more
physically capable of completely the job more efficiently and work for lower wages. In Mary
Lorenna Kennys book Hidden Heads of Households she researched street children whom
create much of the labor force in Latin America because they need to help support their families.

In the introduction of her book she makes an interesting point about while some industries in
Latin America choose to employ children over adults. In one examples she explains it is because
children weigh less and are able to climb certain trees in the agriculture sector with out breaking
or damaging the trees. She also discovers in her research that while there are child labor laws
they are often over looked and poorly enforced. The laws were implement to try and ensure that
these street children would still be able to attend school. However in Kennys research she found
that often children were missing school to work for their families. While respectably these
children were fiercely dedicated to helping their families the long hours they would work for
minimal payments created inequality in their educational prospects.
It is a challenging to say the least to pin point exactly what policies should be
implemented in order to close the gendered, generational and racial gaps. However through the
readings and lectures over the past weeks of class it is clear that literacy rates must be improved,
a minimum wage should be set at a higher pay that does not discriminate based on age, gender,
or race, and social policies must be implemented and enforced by the government. The
government in Latin America must implement social policies, such as ones similar to those
mentioned in the film My Five Years with Evo, in order to help supplement the incomes of the
poor in the region. Social policies should include forms of welfare and enforcement of laws such
as child labor laws and wage requirements. Education and literacy rates in Latin America are
merit goods, and because of the inequality between race, age, and gender they are often under
consumed and over looked. Child labor laws must be strictly enforced in order to allow children
the ability to gain their education or at a minimum become efficiently literate. With the
enforcement of these laws it will not only create more available jobs for adults it will create the
ability for the eventually educated children to find better higher paying jobs in the future and to
further develop their nations. Child labor laws, wage requirements, and other social policies
must, in order to be effective, apply to not only all men or boys of any race, but also all women
no matter their race. It is clear there is sever inequality in Latin America, and its not an issue that
can be changed in the matter of a year or two however by implementing and enforcing new
policies such as the ones stated above Latin America would begin to move in the direction of
equality and the policies could be adjusted along the way as needed over the years.