A Nuanced Look at Gender Interactions on Informal Employment and Income in Argentina and Uruguay

• Main Author: Knight, Teagan
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2019
• Subjects: women; informal sector; education; race; migration; intersectionality; Labor Economics
• Online Access: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2191; https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3254&context=cmc_theses

There are many existing studies characterizing the informal sector in Latin America, but the literature fails to fully examine the interactions between gender and disadvantaging factors on the probability of informal employment and its returns to wage. This analysis uses survey data from Argentina (2001) and Uruguay (2006) to examine the heterogeneous effects of number of children under 5, education, minority status, and migrant status on male and female informal employment and income. Being female interacts with number of children under 5 to create no effect on probability of informal employment, in contrast to a significant negative effect for men. Education has a greater negative effect on probability of informal work for females, while minority status and migrant status have a greater positive effect on the probability of being employed informally for females. Additionally, working informally is associated with a negative effect on wage for both females and males, but this effect is less for females. Number of children under 5 also negatively affects female wages, while there is no such effect for men.