Women in Panama


Women in Panama are the women who live in or are from Panama. Panamanian women, by tradition, are Hispanic and they are treated as equal to men, accorded with "deference and respect".

Panamanian culture

Young women in Panama, particularly those who are single, are regarded as persons with "very high symbolic status", including giving them roles as Carnaval Queens. One particular example of this type of reverence of female adolescents is the celebration of the inna suid by the Kuna Indians, which is a three-day celebration of the adolescent girls' coming of age.
Some Panamanian women occupy high positions in the field of the professions, education, and government service. Panama had a female president as their national leader, in the person of Mireya Moscoso, who was Panama's first female president, serving from 1999 to 2004.
The literacy rate is estimated at 94.4% for females and 95.7% males.

Family life

In common with other Latin American countries, cohabitation is today very common in Panama, and most children are born to unmarried women: in the 2000s, 58,5% of births were to cohabiting mothers, 24,4% to married mothers, and 17,1% to single mothers. But unlike other countries in the region, births outside of marriage have been the majority for decades: in the 1970s only 30,4% of children were born inside of marriage. The total fertility rate is 2.38/children born per woman.

Domestic violence

Domestic violence is a problem in the country. Panama enacted Ley No.38 del 2001 against domestic violence. In 2013, the country enacted Law 82 - Typifying Femicide and Violence Against Women a comprehensive law against violence against women.