The Buenos Aires city government, along with the 50 companies that comprise the city’s Public Private Initiative for Gender Equality in the Labor Market presented today a "home office" guide with a gender perspective.

“Today more than ever we need to work as a team. Our post-pandemic switch-on plan requires us to redouble our efforts in the public and private sector to prevent gender gaps from widening and achieve greater conditions of equality. We need the talent and leadership of women" said Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.

With the new work schemes and dynamics that have emerged during the pandemic, families were forced to change the way in which they organize and balance their work obligations, care tasks and consumption habits.

In this context, and to prevent new flexible schemes such as home office and extraordinary leave from deepening gender pay inequalities, the city government prepared a Comprehensive Strategy for Gender Equality in conjunction with the Business Network for Diversity from Universidad Di Tella and with the sponsorship of UN Women: a guide for the effective implementation of flexible work schemes from a gender perspective.

The guide contains more than 15 effective measures to ensure an equitable allocation of flexible work, such as permanently monitoring the individual needs of staff, participating in the design and implementation of the new work modalities and rethinking annual and other leave systems towards more equitable schemes, all meant to guarantee equal opportunities for men and women.

"There is no possibility of achieving gender equality in a substantive way if it is not with the involvement of all sectors of society, and the private sector has a fundamental role to play", said Paula Narvaez, Representative of UN Women in Argentina.

The guidelines are part of a set of actions promoted by the Public-Private Initiative for Gender Equality in the Labor Market, and were enriched with the contributions and reflections that emerged from the virtual meeting "The progress of women in the city post Covid- 19: Public-private dialogue for a switch-on with gender perspective", carried out with the companies and institutions participating in the initiative.

“The pandemic not only allowed us to position the gender agenda within the business community and promote good practices, it also forced us to think about the process of returning to the workplace and the implementation of a new form of organization and development of our companies in the new normal”, said Inés Cura, Leader of the Diversity Network of IDEA, one of the partner organizations of the initiative.

The Public - Private Initiative for Gender Equality in the Labor Market

Promoted by the city government’s Secretariat General and Secretariat for International Relations in conjunction with the Institute for Business Development of Argentina (IDEA), PwC, the Endeavor Foundation and Upward Women, with the technical support of the Di Tella University and the sponsorship of UN Women, the initiative will co-create a Public-Private Action Plan for Gender Equality in the Labor Market with specific goals and lines of action along five main axes:

• Female labour participation
• Gender pay gap
• Women's access to decision-making positions
• Work-life balance and family life
• Enterprising women

Currently, 49 companies work together with the Buenos Aires government to eliminate gender gaps in the labor market.

To learn more about this initiative, write to equalitygenero@buenosaires.gob.ar.