The impact of economic policy and structural change on gender employment inequality in Latin America, 1990-2010

Seguino, Stephanie and Braunstein, Elissa (2012): The impact of economic policy and structural change on gender employment inequality in Latin America, 1990-2010.

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of economic policy and structural change on gender inequality in employment and economic opportunities for a set of 18 Latin American countries over the time period 1990-2010. We use three different methodologies to explore this question: 1) statistical description of changes in a range of gender inequality in economic opportunity variables in the 1990s versus the 2000s; 2) estimates of the growth elasticity of employment for women and for men; and 3) econometric analysis of the determinants of gendered employment and unemployment levels, as well as the determinants of gender inequality in these variables.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Latin America, gender, inequality, structural change, macroeconomic policy
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C5 - Econometric Modeling > C51 - Model Construction and Estimation; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook > E62 - Fiscal Policy; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O54 - Latin America ; Caribbean; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B54 - Feminist Economics

References

Agénor, Pierre-Richard and Otaviano Canuto. 2012. “Access to Infrastructure and Women’s Time Allocation: Evidence and a Framework for Policy Analysis.” Fondation Pour Les Etudes et Recherches sur le Developpement. Working paper/P45.

Amsden, Alice. 1992. Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Arza, Camila. 2012. “Pension Reforms and Gender Equality in Latin America.” UNRISD Gender and Development Programme Paper No. 15.

Ball, Laurence, Nicolás de Roux, and Marc Hofstetter. 2011. “ Unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean.” IMF Working Paper WP/11/252.

Barrientos, Armando. 2011. “On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America.” UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2011/69.

Birdsall, Nancy, Nora Lustig and Darryl McLeod. 2011. “Declining Inequality in Latin America: Some Economics, Some Politics.” Center for global Development Working Paper 251, Washington, DC.

Braunstein, Elissa. 2012. “Neoliberal Development Macroeconomics. A Consideration of Its Gendered Employment Effects.” UNRISD Gender and Development Programme Paper No. 14.

Cornia, Giovanni Andrea. 2012. “Inequality Trends and their Determinants. Latin America over 1990-2010.” UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/09.

Cornia, Giovanni Andrea. 2010. “Income Distribution under Latin America’s New Left Regimes.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 11(1): 85-114.

Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, Juan Carlos Gómez-Sabaini and Bruno Martorano. 2011. “A New Fiscal Pact, Tax Policy Changes and Income Inequality.” UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2011/70.

Costa, Joana, Elydia Silva, and Fábio Vaz. 2009. “The Role of Gender Inequalities in Explaining Income Growth, Poverty and Inequality: Evidences from Latin American Countries.” Mimeo. International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.

Damill, Mario and Roberto Frenkel. 2012. “Macroeconomic Policies, Growth, Employment, and Inequality in Latin America.” UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/23.

Frenkel, Robert and Jaime Ros. 2006. “Unemployment and the Real Exchange Rate in Latin America.” World Development 34(4): 631-646.

Gammage, Sarah. 2010. “Time Pressed and Time Poor: Unpaid Household Work in Guatemala.” Feminist Economics 16(3): 79–112. Kapsos, Steven. 2005. “The employment intensity of growth: trends and macroeconomic determinants,” Employment Strategy Papers, No. 2005/12, Employment Strategy Department, Geneva: ILO.

Keifman, Saúl N. and Roxana Maurizio. 2012. “Change in Labour Market Conditions and Politics. Their Impact on Wage Inequality during the Last Decade.” UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/14.

Klasen, Stephan and Francesca Lamanna. 2009. ‘The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth: New Evidence for a Panel of Countries.” Feminist Economics 15(3): 91–132.

Kucera, David and Leanne Roncolato. 2012. “Structure Matters: Sectoral Drivers of Growth and the Labour Productivity-Employment Relationship. ILO, mimeo.

Madrid, Raúl L., Wendy Hunter, and Kurt Weyland. 2010. “The Policies and Performance of the Contestatory and Moderate Left,” in Kurt Weyland, Raúl L. Madrid and Wendy Hunter (eds.) Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140-180.

Martorano, Bruno and Giovanni Andrea Cornia. 2011. “The IDLA Dataset: A Tool to Analyze Recent Changes in Income Inequality in L.A.” http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/current-programme/en_GB/Impact-of-Economic-Crisis/

McLeod, Darryl and Nora Lustig. 2010. “Inequality and Poverty under Latin America’s New Left Regimes.” Fordham University Department of Economics Discussion Paper No. 2010-13, December, Bronx, NY.

Molyneux, Maxine. 2007. “Change and Continuity in Social Protection in Latin America Mothers at the Service of the State? UNRISD Gender and Development Programme Paper Number 1.

Ocampo, José Antonio. 2007. “The Macroeconomics of the Latin American Economic Boom.” CEPAL Review 93: 7-28.

Ocampo, José Antonio and Juliana Vallejo. 2012. “Economic Growth, Equity and Human Development in Latin America.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 21(1): 107-133.

Ocampo, José Antonio, Codrina Rada, and Lance Taylor. 2009. Growth and Policy in Developing Countries: A Structuralist Approach. New York, Columbia University Press. Osmani, S. R. 2006. “Exploring the employment nexus: The analytics of pro-poor growth.” In Rizwanul Islam (ed.), Fighting Poverty: The Development-Employment Link. Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO.

Osmani, S. R. 2004. The Employment Nexus Between Growth and Poverty: An Asian Perspective. Report prepared for the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). Stockholm and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York.

Palma, José Gabriel. 2011. “Homogeneous Middles vs. Heterogeneous Tails, and the End of the ‘Inverted-U’: The Share of the Rich is What It’s All About.” Cambridge Working Papers in Economics (CWPE) 1111.

Peres, Wilson. 2011. “Industrial Policies in Latin America.” WIDER Working Paper No. 2011/48.

Rodgriguez, Francisco and Arjun Jayadev. 2010. “The Declining Share of Labor Income.” Human Development Research Paper 2010/36.

Rubery, Jill and Damian Grimshaw. 2011. “Gender and the Minimum Wage.” In S. Lee and D. McCann (Eds), Regulating for Decent Work: New Directions in Labour Market Regulation, Palgrave.

Seguino, S. 2002. “Gender, Quality of Life, and Growth in Asia 1970 to 1990.” The Pacific Review 15(2): 245-77.

Seguino, Stephanie. 2007. “The Great Equalizer? Globalization Effects on Gender Equity in Well-Being in Latin America and the Caribbean.” In A. Shaikh (Ed), Globalization and the Myth of Free Trade, 177-214. London: Routledge.

Seguino, Stephanie. 2010. “Gender, Distribution, and Balance of Payments Constrained Growth in Developing Countries.” Review of Political Economy 22(3): 373–404.

Standing, Guy. 1989. “Global Feminization through Flexible Labor.” World Development 17(7): 1077–1095.

Tejani, Sheba and William Milberg. 2010. “Global Defeminization? Industrial Upgrading, Occupational Segmentation and Manufacturing Employment in Middle-Income Countries.” SCEP Working Paper 2010-1, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis & Department of Economics, New School for Social Research, New York.

Van der Hoeven, Rolph and Malte Lubker. 2006. External Openness and Employment: The Need for Coherent International and National Policies. Paper presented at the XXII G24 Technical Group Meeting, Palais des Nations, Geneva, March 16–17.