Employment heterogeneity in Argentina: an analysis based on productive features and sectorial relations

FERNÁNDEZ MASSI, MARIANA

Leicester

Congreso; Association for Heterodox Economics 20th Anniversary Conference; 2018

Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE)

Most of the studies addressing employment heterogeneity relate this feature to the coexistence of modern and outdated productive sectors, that is, to structural heterogeneity. In these studies, the scale of production, as a proxy for productivity, is one of the main features to understand this heterogeneity. However, this perspective makes the connections among the different productive sectors invisible. Other approaches, however, focus their analyses on the integration among them to explain the characteristics of the jobs offered. I distinguish, on the one hand, those explanations which consider that outdated sectors produce with some autonomy from the rest of the economy, and on the other, those who find in their integration the key to understanding the heterogeneity of jobs. The research evaluates such explanations, analyzing the differences in the conditions of employment in Argentina considering the characteristics of the productive sectors and the relationships among them.This paper, based on my M.A. thesis, evaluates such explanations based on a typology of jobs in 2008-2011. The relevant dimensions to analyse the heterogeneity of employment positions are identified by principal component analysis, and from them a map of industries is drawn through classification analysis. The characterization of the industries included in each segment shows elements linked to the approaches of autonomy, as well as to others related to integration approaches.