Gender and Ethnicity in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala

Resumen

In this article, we examine the structure of gender and ethnic wage gaps, and thedistribution of both, paid and unpaid work in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala. The wage gap is assessed by quantile decomposition methods and the classical Blinder Oaxaca decomposition, while the determinants of hours allocated to paid and unpaidwork activities between gender groups, are estimated by seemingly unrelated regressions. The results indicate that women are highly discriminated in the job market andundertake most of the domestic activities of the households.  The indigenous popu-lation also suffers from discrimination, but the wage gap is mostly explained by the difference in endowments. The wider gap at the lower tail of the distribution suggestthe presence of sticky floors effects for both, women and indigenous population.