New Century, Old Disparities: Gender and Ethnic Earnings Gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean

This book is about gender and ethnic differences in labor markets earnings. It revolves around the question: to what extent the gender (ethnic) differences in earnings are a result of gender (ethnic) differences in observable individuals' characteristics that the labor markets reward? Such a  question is answered with a novel methodological approach based on matching comparisons, resembling the Oaxaca Blinder (OB) decompositions, extending their scope. What would the distribution of females' and males' earnings be if they had equal levels of education, if they worked the same quantity of hours per week, if they worked in the same kind of formal jobs, or in firms of the same size? What would happen with the earnings gap, for instance, if men and women had the same occupations or were distributed equally through economic sectors? Further on, what would happen if all men and women in the labor markets were equally distributed along all of these characteristics at the same time? The novelty of the methodology introduced in this book is that it allows us to create fictional labor markets where these counterfactuals are true. Furthermore, this book addresses not only the extent to which those differentials can be explained by individuals? characteristics, but also how have these gaps evolved during the last two decades. In this way, it allows the discussion of policy options for these pressing issues in the region.