The fourth edition of the Retratos Magazine launches a series of interviews with IBGE technicians in charge of coordinating each one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs. Below you can find the full interview with Bárbara Cobo Soares, PhD in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ and coordinator of the SDG #5 at the IBGE. She discusses the participation of the IBGE in this scenario and highlights aspects of our culture that still contribute to social inequalities between men and women.  

Retratos Magazine: How has the IBGE been dealing with the gender issue in Brazil?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: The IBGE has already been exploiting this subject for a long time. Every household survey that is disaggregated by sex – man/woman – allows an analysis by gender, which is more than a biologic issue. Like the roles expected from each sex in a society: what to do, which course to attend, behaviors, an assortment of things.  The Summary of Social Indicators mainly exploits this subject in the labor market, which is the greatest focus of gender inequality in Brazil. Brazil has also overcome the education bottleneck, since women are more educated than men today. Nevertheless, it is still not reflected in the labor market, as it involves a number of other issues due to the fact that several subjects intertwine in gender analysis. So, you have to not only look at her insertion in the labor market. Why are her earnings not similar, since she is more educated? Much probably because she chooses jobs that require more flexible work hours, since she still has an extremely heavy load of household tasks, which are much in charge of women. Or because of the violence issue, which may be the most important gap to be studied here at the IBGE, an issue still to be provided.
Actually, the gender discussion was already present in the Millennium Development Goals. They already had a specific goal on gender inequality, though more oriented to education. We adapted it to gender inequality in the labor market in the Brazil Report, which is the case in Brazil. These assorted subjects intertwine in the SDGs, which is the role of women in decision taking: how many women are deputies, senators, judges, businesspersons, entrepreneurs. The role of women in social-political participation, the issues involved in sexual and reproductive health.
We are now designing the National Survey of Demography and Health - PNDS, which will be coupled with the National Survey of Health - PNS. We will ask about domestic violence in this survey on sexual and reproductive health focused on women at reproductive age. We aim at analyzing all these subjects in an integrated way. The SDG  indicators system will contribute to this, as Brazil will have to provide answers to a number of them. Many of them are still to be defined. We have to be prepared to provide these answers.

Retratos Magazine: Among so many subjects, what is the greatest challenge?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: I think it is the integrated analysis. Only integrated policies solve inequalities in the labor market, like, for example, a daycare policy, since we know that household tasks are one of the greatest factors that cause women to drop out schools and jobs. For example, when we look at the distribution of management positions by sex, we see more men than women. It is what people call "glass ceiling": women see where they want to arrive to, but a barrier prevents them to do so. Some people do not hire women because they may get pregnant and leave for a while due to a maternity leave. And then they have to take care of the child. If the distribution of tasks between men and women was more divided, more equitable, this would be a more consistent way to fight against such inequalities.

Retratos Magazine: Could you better explain the concept of "glass ceiling"?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: It is like an invisible barrier. Women are educated, are prepared, it is more than proved that they are competent. The glass idea is that they see higher positions through the glass ceiling, but cannot pass through it. Mainly due to prejudice. A number of European countries managed to decrease inequality by means of shared maternity and paternity leaves: couples get two years.  It will not matter when you hire someone, since both men and women could leave to take care of a child. It solved part of this issue. But there are others. In a way, gender issues are recent. We have taken a long time to vote, to be allowed to work. There are wonderful movies showing how much we have to run after it and conquer the same rights. Now we have to exercise these rights. It is no use being just in the law, one have to exercise them. I think that our indicators are trying to show this. But there is still a way to go.

Retratos Magazine: How to think of the relation between measured data and cultural perceptions?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: That is why a sector like the Department of Social Indicators is important. Because it is a sector that has no specific surveys, but you should have a lot of reading to understand what is being raised. Only the raw data that come in the surveys can be disaggregated by sex, but you have to understand the socially-expected roles that each sex performs in the society. So you have to have a reading of history: why is it expected that women take care of children or change diapers? Sometimes it is so endogenous that it is not perceived. There are no baby-changing facilities in male bathrooms. It is expected that daughters take care of their parents – the population is now getting older, so you have not only to take care of children, but also of older and disabled persons, and it fatally falls on women.
We know of the expected roles. When we look at the number of hours dedicated to household tasks and care of men and women in the Continuous PNAD, for example, it supports what we state: men continue to dedicate ten weekly hours in household tasks and care and women, 22, 23 hours. When it comes to formal employment in the labor market, men have more hours than women. This supports what we think: women manage to look for more flexible work hours, many times informal, as they cannot work for eight hours because the child attends a half-day school. You see different participation rates in the labor market. For the same reasons.
For example, when you look at this generation that neither studies nor works, the so-called "neither/nor", you notice that they are not 20% of persons doing "nothing". We will study these data to picture a profile of these persons. So, those who did not study in the formal education system and neither worked nor looked for a job were essentially girls, youngsters, with children. Doing household tasks. So, it is not the case of doing nothing. They have no way to return to school or to the labor market, because they still have a choice to make and also a balance: is it worthwhile to return to the labor market, earn little and still have to pay someone else to take care of the child? If you do not have such integrated look, such study load – and when you design the questionnaire you think a little about this: what do I want to know in terms of information?

Retratos Magazine: How to do this taking into account such differences?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: The ideal is to have a survey on the regular time use and we are running after that. In PNAD, we take time spent with household tasks and care. But we are not able to get simultaneous activities. Women are often cooking and looking at the child, doing two tasks at the same time. It can be captured from the time use survey.  So we know it is important by the time we design the questionnaire. We know that big questionnaires are complicated and that take a long time at the persons´ home, but household tasks and care have to be investigated.
If the number of hours of care and household tasks of a woman is reduced and that of her man do not change, she is necessarily using another woman to do what she is not managing to do: a maid, a babysitter or leaving with a grandmother. Basically, you do not see many changes in this respect. Women continue with all the duties of taking care and doing the household tasks. It has a huge influence on their life conditions.
In a survey that covers all the municipalities like Munic, for example, we have a block on gender policies, in which we ask about women´s police stations, care centers for women in situation of vulnerability and type of gender policy being implemented in the municipality. All this will provide a big picture to understand where are the bottlenecks and where to focus. Because we point them out, make diagnoses. Gender is complex because it is transverse, a number of subjects intertwine.

Retratos Magazine: Is it possible to talk about gender and neither about color and race nor social class?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: We have to speak, there is no way to avoid this. Whenever possible, we disaggregate either by income bracket or by color and race, because it matters. This make a difference even within the group of women. Women are not a homogeneous group, there are important differences among them. When we look at the indicators, black and brown women are undeniably in worse conditions in the indicators of income, access to sanitation, labor market and education.

Retratos Magazine: How to acknowledge and value the domestic work?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: Some countries even carry out satellite accounts, within the national accounts, a separate account to measure the value of such work. Like estimating its value. We began to list what are household tasks in the Continuous PNAD. For example: today I took 20 minutes only talking with the person that works for me about what food to cook, what will be served in the weekend – this is domestic work, it is a workload sometimes not considered work, but it is. It took me 20 minutes to prepare the grocery list. A household task seems to take a broom and sweep the house, but it is not just that. There are other things that have to be taken into account.  The Continuous PNAD improved a lot the capture of these data. The idea is to deepen that.  As we show it and encourage the discussion, maybe we foster a change in the behavior. We see some changes, but we still see statements expecting women to do everything.

Retratos Magazine: Can you mention some examples of what the IBGE is already doing in terms of the SDG #5?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: The Summary of Social Indicators already analyzes gender in a number of chapters. Based on Census data and mapped by municipality, we developed the National System of Gender Indicators - SNIG, showing how the issue of gender inequality is in every subject investigated by the Census. 
Some indicators are regularly produced, others not quite. We are now developing the PNDS. We are introducing some aspects of violence in the PNDS and in the Continuous PNAD. We are also discussing a partnership with the National Council of Justice - CNJ to develop a survey on victimization. The federal government maintained a study group on gender and time use for a while, involving the Special Secretariat of Policies for Women - SPM, the Institute of Applied Economic Research - IPEA and the United Nations Women. In order to follow it up, I take part in the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics, a United Nations group that deals with gender and time use issues. They have a short set of gender indicators that are now being revised in light of the SDGs, in order to be launched next year in a regular way. We are working in this direction.

Retratos Magazine: How do you assess the dialogue of the IBGE with the society and social movements in terms of gender issues?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: I manage to participate in seminars as much as I can, as well as my staff. I always say that we have to display the results of our analyses in the showcase, in order to check whether they make sense. I think that the discussion between the IBGE and the society can be enhanced by means of forums. We are usually looking towards information producers and users. I teach in the post-graduation program of the UFRJ and perceive that many people do not know the sources used by the IBGE. Time permitting, we should go more to the universities, forums and seminars to show what we have and receive the feedback of persons who work with this.

Retratos Magazine: What does it change when we call a particular violence of "domestic violence"?
Bárbara Cobo Soares: The IBGE publishes what is in conformance with the law, respecting the rules. Visibility is what being changed, since women are now understanding that they are actually being abused, what was not previously seen as violence. Care is taken in the questionnaire to specify what is violence. We have sexual, physical and emotional violence. When we contact persons in the social movements, like social workers taking care of women, you realize that they understand it as a "couple issue" rather than violence. So, you have to make people think when you make the data visible. We have our limitations, so I think that everyone has its role, like social movements, universities – which are freer and, for example, can research focus groups, producing a richer discussion that we do not have the resources to do. We are aiming at addressing what is put in national terms (legislation, policies), international recommendations, metadata of the indicators and what we can do with the existing surveys, like PNAD, the Consumer Expenditure Survey - POF, PNDS and PNS.

Bárbara Cobo Soares

Text: Marília Loschi
Images: J.C. Rodrigues and Licia Rubinstein