Hispanic women contributed $1.3 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, up from $661 billion in 2010 and growing at a rate nearly three times faster than non-Hispanics during the same period, according to a new report funded by Bank of America and conducted by professors at California Lutheran University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The report was compiled using publicly available economic and demographic data from U.S. agencies and shows “that Latinas are the engines of economic vitality in the United States, bringing life to the American economy,” economist Matthew Fienup, one of the study’s authors and executive director of Lutheran University’s Center for Economic Research & Forecasting, said in a Zoom call presenting the findings Monday.
“Latinas are outpacing their gender and ethnic peers in key economic measures, including record levels of labor force participation, education attainment and income growth,” he added in a press release.
The economic contribution of Hispanic women is about as large as the GDP of Florida, and is exceeded only by that of California, Texas and New York, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Mr. Fienup says the growth in Latina economic output and labor force participation — nine times faster than that of non-Latinos — translates into higher incomes and economic mobility for Latinas.
“We’re moving in the right direction. And that wage gap is closing, although Latinas face some disadvantages compared to non-Latinos in the United States,” Fienup said, adding that Latinos outpace other groups in investing in business start-ups and home ownership, despite having less access to capital.
Women as a whole have made vast strides in terms of representation in leadership positions and high-income sectors.
But the improvement in the wage gap has stalled for about 20 years, including for Latinas. Black and Latina women workers have the largest wage gap of any group.
Titled Giving Life to the Economywhich means “Bringing Life to the Economy” in Spanish, the new study draws on six previous reports on Latino GDP in the United States, written in partnership with Bank of America to examine the rapidly growing economic contributions of “Latinas” living in the United States.
Several factors are behind the rapid economic growth of Latinas, according to David Hayes-Bautista, co-author of the report and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the UCLA School of Medicine.
“Older immigrant Latinas are starting to exit the workforce and their spots are being filled by their U.S.-born daughters and granddaughters,” Hayes-Bautista said during Monday’s Zoom call. Today’s Latino workers are entering the workforce as functionally bilingual professionals with much higher levels of education than their predecessors, creating a slingshot effect, he added.
“These daughters and granddaughters of immigrants combine the extraordinary, selfless work ethic of their elders with rapid growth in human capital,” said Hayes Bautista.