Gender wage discrimination in Mexico: A distributional approach

Abstract

This paper examines the observed wage differentials by gender in Mexico over the last two decades (1984 to 2002). To estimate and understand the wage gap the paper uses a nonparametric-distributional approach, and compares the results with the other parametric approaches. The paper finds evidence of labour market discrimination against women. The average discrimination in the first decade fell considerably, but then started to increase again. The distribution of discrimination also changed over time. The average fall in discrimination over time has resulted largely from a fall in the estimated discrimination at the lower tail of the wage distribution, with little to no change at the upper tail