As the world celebrated International Women's Day on Monday, Costa Rica took stock in how far Costa Rican women – the “Ticas” – have come, but also eyed the stretch of road to equality that still lies ahead.

Ticas are taking jobs outside the home and climbing the labor ladder like never before. A Tica, Laura Chinchilla, will become the country's first female president on May 8.

“On a macro level I think women in Costa Rica have come a long way in a number of areas,” said Simone Bunse, a former lecturer at INCAE Business School in Costa Rica who has researched women in leadership. She cited Ticas' literacy and education levels as both being above those of males.

“However, we are far from a picture of ‘the empowered woman' we may want to see,” she said.

This year's International Women's Day came under the United Nations' theme “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”

According to Mabel Figueroa, coordinator for public policy for gender equality at the National Women's Institute (INAMU), progress for Ticas continues to be unnecessarily stifled.

Studies have shown that the earnings of Costa Rican women are trailing those of men. In 1996, females earned 15 percent less than their male counterparts in a similar job. By 2008, the salary gap had risen to 26 percent, according to an October 2009 report by the government-run INAMU and the independent research group State of the Nation.

“One of the most powerful reasons (for the wage gap) is that the society believes that a woman's salary is a household's secondary rather than its principal income,” said Figueroa.

Despite women's gains in society, many Ticos still view a woman's role to be in the home, when that's increasingly not the reality, said Figueroa. According to official statistics, a considerable number of women are their household's primary breadwinner.

For Raquel Herrera, programs specialist at the United Nations Development Program's Costa Rica office, Ticas face difficult choices around their career and family.

For more on this story, see the March 12 print or digital edition of The Tico Times.