Wage differentials across economic sectors in the Colombian formal labour market: evidence from a survey of firms

Ana Iregui, Ligia Alba Melo B. () and Maria Ramirez-Giraldo
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ligia Melo ()

No 7736, Borradores de Economia from Banco de la Republica

Abstract: The existence of wage differentials across sectors is a widely observed phenomenon. This paper provides new elements to understand inter and intra-sectoral wage differentials in Colombia by analysing a wage setting survey of 1305 firms and emphasizing the role of firm characteristics. The results from the descriptive analysis of the survey confirm the existence of substantial wage differentials across sectors and occupational positions in the country. We found positive wage differentials, with respect to the average of the economy for the different occupational groups, in electricity, gas, water and mining, financial services and manufacturing and strong negative wage differentials in agriculture, forestry and fishing. When analysing wage differential within each occupational group, higher wage dispersion is observed in the case of managers, followed by professionals. The lower wage dispersion for the least qualified jobs could be associated with the existence of a minimum wage in the country. In addition, we estimate cross section models for each occupational group and sector to account for the importance of firm characteristics in explaining wage differentials.

Keywords: Wage differentials; survey of firms; labour market; cross section estimation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 J30 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58
Date: 2010-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Wage differentials across economic sectors in the Colombian formal labour market: evidence from a survey of firms (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000094:007736

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