Sectoral Allocation by Gender of Latin American Workers over the Liberalization Period of the 1990s
The recent restructuring of Latin American economies has renewed interest in the effects of trade liberalization, on labor markets, and on the gender division of labor. The author does not attempt to establish casuality between economic reforms, an...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/12/1660279/sectoral-allocation-gender-latin-american-workers-over-liberalization-period-1990s http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19400 |
| Summary: | The recent restructuring of Latin
American economies has renewed interest in the effects of
trade liberalization, on labor markets, and on the gender
division of labor. The author does not attempt to establish
casuality between economic reforms, and the types of jobs
that men and women hold. Instead, she provides a detailed
description of the trends in male, and female formal, and
informal sector participation during the economic reform
period in Argentina, Brazil, and Costa Rica. The author
first compares the gender composition of the formal,
informal wage, and self-employment sectors in a year before
reforms (1988 for Argentina, 1989 for Brazil, and Costa
Rica), and a year after reforms implementation (1997 for
Argentina, 1995 for Brazil and Costa Rica). Although women
continued to be more likely than men to work in the informal
wage sector, there is no trend of
"masculinization" or "feminization" of
the informal sector, or any other. Instead, in Argentina men
have overtaken women as the most prevalent workers in the
informal wage sector, while in Brazil, the opposite has
occurred (as men move into self-employment). In Costa Rica
there have been no statistical, observable changes. The
author then considers the distribution across sectors within
each gender group, to identify whether men, and women are
more likely to select different sectors in the post-reform
period relative to the pre-reform period. Among both men,
and women in all three countries (except Brazilian men),
workers have become more likely to hold informal wage jobs,
and less likely to hold formal sector jobs. Trends in human
capital accumulation explain these changes for both men, and
women, while changes in gender roles, primarily in homecare
and marriage, do not seem to have an effect. |
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