2014 poll from Gallup found that 57 percent of people in Nicaragua believe women are not treated with respect and dignity. Across Latin America as a whole, 61 percent of people said women are not treated with respect and dignity, by far the most of any region worldwide.

Machismo has serious economic consequences, particularly for a country such as Nicaragua, which is one of the poorest in the Americas and is in dire need of the faster economic growth that increased female participation in the labor force can bring. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Human Capital, economists Marc Teignier and David Cuberes estimated that if the gender labor gap were completely closed — that is, if women worked at the same rate as men doGender Gap Index, moving from number 62 to number 10 in 2016. The country saw significant improvements across all dimensions: political, economic, educational and health. Nicaragua now ranks above the Netherlands, Denmark and the U.S. in the index. Within Latin America, Nicaragua has been the best performer in the region for the past five years.

Other indicators tell a similar story. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimates that Nicaragua has one of Latin America’s smallest median income gaps between men and women. Additionally, 54 percent of micro, small and medium businesses in the country are owned by women, according to recent government data. These businesses are critical to the Nicaraguan economy, contributing 40 percent of the country’s total GDP and providing over 72