Beyond Wages: What Matters Most in Job Choice for Women in El Salvador

Ivette Contreras, Lelys Dinarte, Amparo Palacios-Lopez, Valentina Costa and Steffanny Romero

No 11333, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper studies job preferences among women in rural and peri-urban areas in El Salvador using a discrete choice experiment. Drawing on focus group insights, the analysis varies wages and five non‑wage job attributes—contract status, experience requirements, commute safety, residential address disclosure, and childcare availability—and estimates preferences using a mixed logit model. Women are willing to forgo substantial earnings for jobs that offer a safe commute, accessible childcare, and lower barriers to entry. Formal contracts play a limited role in job choice in this high informality context. Preferences are heterogeneous: risk averse and rural women place a particularly high premium on safety and childcare, while younger and less risk averse women are more sensitive to entry barriers and address related stigma. The results highlight the importance of labor market frictions that prevent wages from compensating for job disamenities and suggest that policies targeting safety, childcare, and access may be more effective than contract formalization in expanding women’s employment opportunities.

Date: 2026-03-16
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