Gender-based educational and occupational segregation in fourteen Latin American countries

Abstract

This is a comparative study of gender-based educational and occupational segregation and the effect of the former on the latter, for fourteen Latin American countries in 2018 (or later available). Aggregate educational segregation remains low, but findings suggest levels of occupational segregation are doubly as high (modest positively correlated). This is observed despite anti-discrimination policies, working women's education levels increasingly exceeding those of working men and significant differences in female labor force participation across countries. A disaggregated scrutiny of educational and occupational categories shows that educational segregation displays a U shape, with low segregation in intermediate educational categories and higher levels in the extremes (those who never attended and tertiary education) with women concentrated at the higher end. Nevertheless, men strongly dominate agricultural occupations, plant and machine operation, and crafts-related jobs. Among the legislators and managers, on average only 1 out of 3 workers are women. Regarding aggregate impact, educational segregation has a mild to strong impact on occupational segregation (for the region, 80% on average). As for the factors behind this impact, the “increase mechanism”, i.e. when men and women with the same educational background choose different jobs in different occupations, accounts for most of the effect.