Publication: New Century, Old Disparities : Gender and Ethnic Earnings Gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean
Date
2012-09-07
ISSN
Published
2012-09-07
Author(s)
Abstract
Despite sustained economic growth at the
end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, Latin
America and the Caribbean still faces high inequality and
weak indicators of well-being among certain population
groups. Women, people of African ancestry, and indigenous
peoples are often at the bottom of the income distribution.
The share of female-headed households rose in the past 20
years. By the beginning of the 1990s, women headed 1.2
percent of complete households (households in which both
husband and wife are present) and 79.8 percent of single-
head households. This book presents a regional overview of
gender and ethnic disparities in labor earnings during this
last turn of the century. Latin America and the Caribbean
provide a rich environment for studying social inequality,
because historical inequalities along gender and ethnic
lines persist, despite positive indicators of economic
development. The extent of inequality and its probable
causes vary widely across the many countries in the region.
The book adopts a sophisticated econometric methodology for
measuring earnings gaps and applies it consistently across
and within countries to measure gender and racial or ethnic
differences. The analysis includes a dynamic dimension that
sheds light on the evolution of earnings gaps over time. The
book offers important insights on economic and political
strategies that could be adopted to reduce inequality. The
reduction of gender-based segregation in the workplace
represents an area in which policy interventions can improve
the efficiency of labor markets. Determining whether
addressing occupational rather than hierarchical segregation
is more effective is one of the areas of policy design to
which this book aims to make a contribution. Latin America
and the Caribbean is also a racially and ethnically diverse
region, with some 400 ethnic groups.
Citation
“Ñopo, Hugo. 2012. New Century, Old Disparities : Gender and Ethnic Earnings Gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin American Development Forum;. © Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/d38fe4ce-986b-568c-8f03-30f9f18579e3 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”