Género, estado civil y la acumulación de activos en el Ecuador: una mirada a la violencia patrimonial

Abstract

Although women in Ecuador have relatively strong property rights, these are not always honored, resulting in their experiencing patrimonial violence. This is one of the reasons that, according to our national household assets survey, the value of women’s assets on average is less than that of men. Nonetheless, there are major differences in the average value of wealth attained depending on a person’s marital status (being much higher among those who are married in comparison to living in a consensual union) and in the size of the gender wealth gap (being greatest among those who are married, widowed or separated).Drawing upon the results of our qualitative field work in three provinces, we illustrate how these gender wealth gaps by marital status may be the result of patrimonial violence.