Wage gap attributed to gender discrimination in Mexico

Abstract

In Mexico, gender inequality in the labor market is a reality, and one of the problems is the gender wage gap. The objective of this paper is to estimate the wage gap attributed to gender discrimination in México, using sectoral, occupational and educational variables, with data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment from 2005 to 2020, measured through the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, which consist of breaking down the wage gap into an explained part and a non-explained part or attributed to discrimination, also the selection bias is corrected by the Heckman two steps method. The results indicate that working in the service sector and as an industrial worker increase the wage gap, while education reduces it. Despite the decrease in the gap in the period, part of it may be due to discrimination, being 6% on average, this difference could be caused by the gender roles and the sexual division of labor, that influence on occupational segregation.