Abstract
The article aims to analyse gender segregation in the labour market while comparing two national contexts in Europe and Latin America. Specifically, it will consider the growth trends of female employment in the last 25 years (1992–2017), its distribution between activity sectors and occupations, and the gender pay gap. Feminization models and gender inequalities are framed within labour market segmentation theories, which are in partial contrast to human capital theories and neoclassical economics. The initial hypothesis is that the gender distribution of occupations measured by a segregation index is similar in Italy and Chile, despite significant differences in the socio-economic and institutional contexts. Through this intercontinental comparison, the article intends to shed light on women’s labour market conditions and segregation patterns, which are multidimensional and generalizable (transcontinental) phenomena, connected to the unequal division of labour in the new post-industrial order.
Highlights
The article, elaborated within the INCASI1 project, aims to analyse gender segregation in the labour market by comparing two national contexts in Europe and Latin America.Let us immediately clarify the justification principles for the comparison between the two countries
There is a wide debate on advantages and disadvantages of gender segregation indices, and there are alternative indices such as those proposed by Karmel and MacLachlan (1988) and Charles and Grusky (2004), we decided to use Women and Employment Index (WEI) mainly for two reasons: first, because its widespread use allows us comparability with other research results and, second, it allows adjusting time variations in the ratio of male and female workers
The analysis highlighted that the two countries, united by a low presence of women in the labour market, share a significant gender segregation—measured by the dissimilarity index in occupational groups and activity sectors—substantially confirming the first research hypothesis
Summary
The article, elaborated within the INCASI1 project, aims to analyse gender segregation in the labour market by comparing two national contexts in Europe and Latin America. Chile has embarked on an incomparable neo-liberal path (Ruiz 2019) with any other Latin American country (e.g. Argentina or Brazil) This suggests that the phenomena of the labour market are typical of a market-oriented economy, such as those of more developed economies, unlike state-led economies such as Argentina. The article investigates the degree of variance of women integration models in the labour market, adopted in different social and national environments. It considers the growth trends of the female workforce in the last 25 years, its distribution between activity sectors and occupations, and gender pay gaps. The second, considering the segregation index, is to explain the patterns of labour inequalities and if the effects of gender segregation are similar or different in the two contexts
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