Determinants of women´s economic participation in Mexico: a job qualification approach

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the factors that influence the recent labor participation of women in Mexico and to measure which skill group contributes the most to inequality. As a first methodological strategy, pre-market variables are analyzed and, through a discrete choice econometric model, the probability of female participation in the labor market is estimated. In the second part of the analysis, a decomposition of the Gini index is carried out with a cooperative games approach, in which the group of working women is classified by type of qualification (high, medium and low). For this purpose, information from the 2019 y 2021 National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE) is used. The results show that the head of the household and schooling is one of the most important factors that determine female labor participation and that the group that contributes the most to inequality is the group with a medium qualification. The main limitation of the document is that it is an analysis only for two years. The originality of the research is attributed to the analysis of pre-market variables. The conclusion is that it is essential for public policy to be oriented towards greater incorporation of the female population into the productive force, as well as higher education, without neglecting family activities for those who require it.