Earnings Inequality Within and Across Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Groups in Latin America

Wendy Cunningham and Joyce Jacobsen ()

No 2003-001, Wesleyan Economics Working Papers from Wesleyan University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Latin American countries are generally characterized as displaying high income and earnings inequality overall along with high inequality by gender, race, and ethnicity. However, the latter phenomenon is not a major contributor to the former phenomenon. Using household survey data from four Latin American countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, and Guyana), we demonstrate (using Theil index decompositions as well as Gini indices, and 90/10 and 50/10 percentile comparisons) that within-group inequality rather than betweengroup inequality is the main contributor to overall inequality. Mlti-stage simulations in which the relatively disadvantaged gender and/or racial/ethnic group is treated more and more as if it were the relatively advantaged group tend to reduce overall inequality measures only slightly and in some cases have the effect of increasing inequality measures.

Keywords: earnings inequality; income inequality; gender; race; and ethnicity differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 I3 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2003-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wes:weswpa:2003-001

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