The Gender Labor Income Gap in Bolivia. An Analysis of Its Evolution between 1993 and 2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-88702021000200095Keywords:
Gender economics, wage differentials, discriminationAbstract
In Bolivia, women working in similar positions as men face lower remunerations, besides being concentrated in low-paid jobs. This paper sheds lights over the gender labor income gap evolution in Bolivia over a 25-year period (1993 to 2018). Using household surveys and applying two different methods, the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and the Ñopo decomposition, we find sound evidence of an important reduction in the gender labor income gap during the analyzed period. This reduction is due to, firstly, the reduction of the number of observable characteristics affecting the labor market such as education and the impact of family characteristics on access to employment. Secondly, it shows the reduction in the unexplained component, which is usually assumed to be discrimination.
Downloads
References
Andersen, L. (1999). Wage differentials between Bolivian cities. Instituto de Investigaciones Socioeconómicas, Universidad Católica Boliviana.
Andersen, L. (2001). Low social mobility in Bolivia: Causes and consequences for development. Instituto de Investigaciones Socioeconómicas, Universidad Católica Boliviana.
Andersen, L., Mercado, A., & Muriel, B. (2003). Discriminación étnica en Bolivia: En el sistema educativo y el mercado de trabajo [Ethnic discrimination in Bolivia: In the education system and the labor market] (Documento de Trabajo N.º 03/03). Instituto de Investigaciones Socioeconómicas, Universidad Católica Boliviana.
Atal, J., Ñopo, H., & Winder, N. (2009). New century, old disparities: Gender and ethnic wage gaps in Latin America. Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
Bellony, A., Hoyos, A., & Ñopo, H. (2010). Gender earnings gaps in the Caribbean: Evidence from Barbados and Jamaica (IDB Working Paper N.º IDB-WP-210). Inter-American Development Bank.
CEPAL. (1992a). Bolivia, Encuesta Integrada de Hogares noviembre 1992 [Bolivia, Integrated Household Survey, November 1992].
CEPAL. (1992b). Bolivia, Encuesta Integrada de Hogares noviembre 1994 [Bolivia, Integrated Household Survey, November 1994].
Chioda, L. (2011). Work and family: Latin American and Caribbean women in search of a new balance. World Bank.
Contreras, D., & Plaza, G. (2010). Cultural factors in women’s labor force participation in Chile. Feminist Economics, 16(2), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701003731815
Enamorado, T., Izaguirre, C., & Ñopo, H. (2009). Gender wage gaps in Central American countries: Evidence from a non-parametric approach (IDB Working Paper N.º IDB-WP-111). Inter-American Development Bank.
Gasparini, L., & Marchionni, M. (2015). Bridging gender gaps? The rise and deceleration of female labor force participation in Latin America: An overview. Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
Hoyos, A., Ñopo, H., & Peña, X. (2010). The persistent gender earnings gap in Colombia, 1994-2006 (IDB Working Paper N.º IDB-WP-174). Inter-American Development Bank.
Jann, B. (2008). The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition for linear regression models. The Stata Journal, (4), 453–479.
Nanneson, F. (2011). Gender and income in Bolivia: Using matching to decompose income [Documento de trabajo]. University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics.
Ñopo, H. (2004). Matching as a tool to decompose wage gaps (IZA Discussion Paper N.º 981). IZA.
Ñopo, H. (2012). New century, old disparities: Gender and ethnic earnings gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean. Inter-American Development Bank.
Ñopo, H., & Hoyos, A. (2010). Evolution of gender wage gaps in Latin America at the turn of the twentieth century: An addendum to New century, old disparities (IZA Discussion Paper N.º 5086). IZA.
Novella, R., Rucci, G., & Vazquez, C. (2015). Porque no quiero o porque no puedo: ¿Cuánto no sabemos del trabajo femenino en Chile? [Because I don’t want to or because I can’t: How much do we not know about female work in Chile?] (Nota Técnica N.º 842). Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.
Oaxaca, R. (1973). Male-female wage differentials in urban labor markets. International Economic Review, 14(3), 693. https://doi.org/10.2307/2525981
Organización Internacional del Trabajo. (2019). Panorama laboral temático 5: Mujeres en el mundo del trabajo. Retos pendientes hacia una efectiva equidad en América Latina y el Caribe [Thematic labour overview 5: Women in the world of work. Pending challenges towards effective equality in Latin America and the Caribbean]. OIT, Oficina Regional para América Latina y el Caribe.
Psacharopoulos, G., & Zafiris, T. (1992). Latin American women’s earnings and participation in the labor force (Policy Research Working Paper N.º 856). World Bank.
Urquidi, M., Valencia, H., Foronda, C., Chumacero, M., & Bagolle, A. (2018). Encuesta de mercado laboral en Bolivia [Labor market survey in Bolivia] (Nota Técnica N.º IDB-TN-1450). Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.
Villegas, H., & Núñez, J. (2005). Discriminación étnica en Bolivia: Examinando diferencias regionales y por nicho de calificación [Ethnic discrimination in Bolivia: Examining regional differences and differences by skill niche] (Documento de Trabajo N.º 02/05). Instituto de Investigaciones Socioeconómicas, Universidad Católica Boliviana.
World Economic Forum. (2020). Índice global de brechas de género del Foro Económico Mundial [Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum].
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Manuel Urquidi Zijderveld, José Horacio Valencia Rivamontan, Guillaume Durand

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Article usage
- ViewsTimes this article's page was opened since the journal started recording statistics. One person can visit more than once.
- 78
- DownloadsTimes the full text of this article (usually the PDF) was opened or downloaded.
- 264
All time, as recorded by the journal.
Last 2 years: 72 views, 211 downloads.
CitationsTimes other scholarly works cited this article, according to OpenAlex and Crossref. The two indexes cover different sources, so their counts differ. : OpenAlex 3 · Crossref 3
3.38 downloads per view (journal average 1.66).Downloads of the full text for every abstract view of this article, compared with the whole journal.
Explore the journal's metrics
