Exploring gender differences in labor markets from the perspective of the task based approach

BRAMBILLA, IRENE; CÉSAR, ANDRÉS; FALCONE, GUILLERMO ENRIQUE; GASPARINI, LEONARDO

Estudios de Economía

Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Chile

Año: 2023 vol. 50 p. 309 - 360

0718-5286

Using households survey microdata from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,Mexico and Peru, we characterize changes in employment and wages betweenthe mid-2000s and the late-2010s emphasizing the gender dimension from theviewpoint of the task-based approach. We employ surveys from PIAAC-OECDto study the task content of jobs and create an index of routine task content(RTC) of occupations. We document five facts: (i) The proportion of routinetasks is currently higher for women than for men. (ii) The employment structureis considerably more biased towards high-RTC jobs in Latin America thanin OECD countries, for both genders. (iii) There was an increase in the employmentparticipation of low-RTC jobs during the period under study, mainlydriven by movements in the occupational structure of women, especially theyoung and middle-aged. (iv) Wage gains were relatively higher in high-RTCoccupations, with this pattern more pronounced for men than for women. (v)While there was a modest reduction in the gender wage gap, the decline wasstronger in computer-intensive occupations.