Trade Liberalization and Gender Wage Gap in Mexico

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to analyze the effect of trade liberalization on the wage gap by gender and its components in Mexico. For this, the behavior of the wage gap is analyzed for different regions of the country, classified according to the degree of exposure to trade liberalization. Using the quantitative methodology of Melly (2005) the breakdown of the salary gap by quantile used the micro data of the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) for the years 2005 and 2016. The results reveal the existence of wage gap by gender in the different regions, that its magnitude differs regionally throughout distribution and that the wage gap has declined over time in all regions of Mexico, but the wage disadvantage still persists against women and this is higher in the lower deciles. Most of the differences are not explained by productive characteristics, although the proportion of inequality associated with discrimination factors declined in 2016 in relation to the previous reference year.