IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ude/wpaper/1508.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Racial Inequality in the Uruguayan Labor Market:An analysis of wage differentials between Afrodescendants and whites

Author

Listed:
  • Marisa Bucheli

    (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República)

  • Rafael Porzecanski

    (Ph.D. Program, Department of Sociology, UCLA. Associate Researcher, Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences, Universidad ORT Uruguay.)

Abstract

Latin America is a region of sharp inequalities that are far from ethnically blind. In particular, there exists a significant socioeconomic gap between Latin Americans of European and the Afrodescendant and Indigenouos populations. Uruguay has usually been considered an exception to this pattern, although the lack of survey data about racial descent and ethnicity did not allow empirical analysis. In 2006, the National Institute of Statistics included a question on racial descent in the Household Survey. In this paper we use these microdata (for the first time) to analyze the wage gap between afro-descendants and whites. The wage ratio is 0.72 for men and 0.78 for women. For each sex, we perform OLS estimations, wage decompositions and quantile regressions. The estimations indicate that discrimination contributes to explain half of the average wage gap of men and 20% of the gap among femles. Part of discrimination works through the placement of Afro-descendant workers into lower-paid occupations. The most important attribute that explains the rest of the gap is education. Finally, quantile regressions show that discrimination declines with percentile.

Suggested Citation

  • Marisa Bucheli & Rafael Porzecanski, 2008. "Racial Inequality in the Uruguayan Labor Market:An analysis of wage differentials between Afrodescendants and whites," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1508, Department of Economics - dECON.
  • Handle: RePEc:ude:wpaper:1508
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12008/2107
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward Telles & Nelson Lim, 1998. "Does it matter who answers the race question? Racial classification and income inequality in Brazil," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 35(4), pages 465-474, November.
    2. repec:idb:brikps:publication-detail,7101.html?id=68504 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Krishna Pendakur & Ravi Pendakur, 2007. "Minority Earnings Disparity Across the Distribution," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 33(1), pages 41-62, March.
    4. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    5. Gad Levanon & Yaron Raviv, 2007. "Decomposing Wage Gaps between Ethnic Groups: The Case of Israel," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(4), pages 1066-1087, April.
    6. Sara Rica & Juan Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2008. "Ceilings or floors? Gender wage gaps by education in Spain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 777-778, July.
    7. Omar Arias & Gustavo Yamada & Luis Tejerina, 2004. "Education, Family Backgrounds and Racial Earnings Inequality in Brazil," Working Papers 04-04, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico, revised 2004.
    8. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    9. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    10. Neuman, Shoshana & Oaxaca, Ronald L, 1998. "Estimating Labour Market Discrimination with Selectivity Corrected Wage Equations: Methodological Considerations and an Illustration from Israel," CEPR Discussion Papers 1915, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Gad Levanon & Yaron Raviv, 2003. "Decomposing Wage Gaps Between Ethnic Groups: The Case of Israel," Working Papers 855, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    12. Omar Arias & Gustavo Yamada & Luis Tejerina, 2002. "Education, Family Background and Racial Earnings Inequality in Brazil," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 80308, Inter-American Development Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florencia Amábile & Marisa Bucheli & Máximo Rossi, 2014. "Inequality and Poverty in Uruguay by Race: the Impact of Fiscal Policies," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 19, Tulane University, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2015.
    2. Gustavo A. García, 2017. "Labor Informality: Choice or Sign of Segmentation? A Quantile Regression Approach at the Regional Level for Colombia," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 985-1017, November.
    3. Bilver Adrian Astorquiza Bustos, 2015. "¿Coexisten los fenómenos de discriminación salarial y segmentación ocupacional hacia las minorías étnico-raciales residentes en Santiago de Cali?," Revista de Economía del Caribe 14778, Universidad del Norte.
    4. Leda M. Pérez & Pedro Llanos Paredes, 2015. "¿Al fondo del escalafón?: un estado de la cuestión sobre el trabajo doméstico remunerado en el Perú," Working Papers 15-01, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muhammad Asali, 2008. "Wage Differentials in Israel: Endowments, Occupational Segregation, Discrimination, and Selectivity," Working Papers 011-08, International School of Economics at TSU, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
    2. Jean-Louis Arcand & Béatrice D'hombres, 2004. "Racial discrimination in the Brazilian labour market: wage, employment and segregation effects," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(8), pages 1053-1066.
    3. Heinze, Anja & Beninger, Denis & Beblo, Miriam & Laisney, François, 2003. "Measuring Selectivity-Corrected Gender Wage Gaps in the EU," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-74, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Seneviratne, Prathi, 2020. "Gender wage inequality during Sri Lanka’s post-reform growth: A distributional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    5. Ssebagala, Richard, 2007. "Wage Determination and Gender Discrimination in Uganda," Research Series 150483, Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).
    6. Günalp, Burak & Cilasun, Seyit Mümin & Acar, Elif Öznur, 2013. "Male-Female Labor Market Participation and the Extent of Gender-Based Wage Discrimination in Turkey," MPRA Paper 51503, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Adnan, Wifag & Miaari, Sami H., 2018. "Voting patterns and the gender wage gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 222-247.
    8. Inés P. Murillo & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "La Gran Recesión y el diferencial salarial por género en España," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 39-76, March.
    9. Gómez-Echeverry, Santiago, 2024. "Within the cracks of the cosmic race: Income inequalities by race and ethnicity in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Jacqueline Agesa & Richard Agesa, 1999. "Gender differences in the incidence of rural to urban migration: Evidence from Kenya," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 36-58.
    11. Arceo-Gómez, Eva O. & Campos-Vázquez, Raymundo M., 2014. "Evolución de la brecha salarial de género en México," El Trimestre Económico, Fondo de Cultura Económica, vol. 0(323), pages .619-653, julio-sep.
    12. Ramskogler, Paul & Riedl, Aleksandra & Schoiswohl, Florian, 2020. "Swinging female labor demand – How the public sector influences gender wage gaps in Europe," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 302, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    13. Kaya Ezgi, 2021. "Gender wage gap across the distribution: What is the role of within- and between-firm effects?," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, January.
    14. Chiara Mussida, 2015. "L?impatto dell?istruzione sui salari per genere in Italia / Appendice Statistica," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2015(2), pages 94-113.
    15. Shoshana Neuman & Ronald Oaxaca, 2004. "Wage Decompositions with Selectivity-Corrected Wage Equations: A Methodological Note," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(1), pages 3-10, April.
    16. Robert Breunig & Sandrine Rospabe, 2005. "Parametric vs. semi-parametric estimation of the male-female wage gap: An application to France," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2005-458, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    17. Aurora Galego & João Pereira, 2010. "Evidence On Gender Wage Discrimination In Portugal: Parametric And Semi‐Parametric Approaches," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(4), pages 651-666, December.
    18. Tushar Agrawal, 2014. "Gender and caste-based wage discrimination in India: some recent evidence [Geschlecht und Kaste-ansässige Lohndiskriminierung in Indien: Einige Neue Beweise]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(4), pages 329-340, December.
    19. Sarah Brown & John G. Sessions, 2003. "Earnings, Education, and Fixed‐Term Contracts," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(4), pages 492-506, September.
    20. Adrián Rubli, 2012. "La importancia de corregir por el sesgo de selección en el análisis de las brechas salariales por género: un estudio para Argentina, Brasil y México," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-36, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    race; discrimination; wage inequality; Uruguay;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ude:wpaper:1508. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrea Doneschi or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/derauuy.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.