Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/89065
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-210
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes gender earnings gaps in Barbados and Jamaica, using a matching comparisons approach. In both countries, as in most of the Caribbean region, females’ educational achievement is higher than that of males. Nonetheless, males’ earnings surpass those of their female peers. Depending on the set of control characteristics, males’ earnings surpass those of females by between 14 and 27 percent of average females’ wages in Barbados, and between 8 and 17 percent of average females’ wages in Jamaica. In the former, the highest earnings gaps are found among low-income workers. Results from both countries confirm a finding that has been recurrent with this matching approach: the complete elimination of gender occupational segregation in labor markets would increase rather than reduce gender earnings gaps. The evidence is mixed regarding segregation by economic sectors. Occupational experience, in the case of Barbados, and job tenure, in the case of Jamaica, help to explain existing gender earnings gaps.
Subjects: 
Gender
Ethnicity
Wage gaps
the Caribbean
Barbados
Jamaica
Matching
JEL: 
C14
D31
J16
O54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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