the results make it possible to infer that the values of x are greater for women than for men to on average for argentina to for ecuador and uruguay and to for peru these ratios are constant throughout the period under study for argentina decline in the cases of ecuador and peru and climb in the cases of brazil and uruguay with an increase in the coefficient for women between and a period during which unemployment was also on the rise see figure this means that while the female labour supply is large in proportion to the size of the workingage population a substantial part of the nonparticipation rate is accounted for by selection factors indicating that there is a larger potential labour supply than in other countries