Increases in the minimum wage help boost the perceptions of working women, particularly those who earn the least, but participation and salary gaps with respect to men still persist, derived from socio-demographic conditions.
Among others, marital status, presence of childhood, educational levels and flexibility to participate in overtime, factors that affect the employment and income of women, according to the Report presented by the Technical Directorate of the National Minimum Wages Commission to the H. Council of Representatives.
In this study, corresponding to the month of March, data from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), from the INEGI, are used. One of the explanations is the way in which workplaces in certain occupations and/or sectors give incentives to people who work more hours.
And this especially harms women who demand greater flexibility in their work schedules or who cannot work overtime due to the unpaid work they do at home.
Under this context, an exercise was carried out to estimate the wage gap between men and women for different ranges of working hours: For people who work more than 48 hours a week: from 40 to 48 and from 35 to 40 hours.
The average hourly wage of the subordinate and paid, salaried employed population aged 25 to 54 was taken to calculate the wage gap.
And it was found that the gender wage gap for the group of people who work more than 48 hours a week is 20.3 percent.
For people employed 40 to 48 hours it is 18 percent and for employed people working 35 to 40 hours, the results are close to zero and are not significant, so no inference can be made from this group.
This study also added an estimate of women’s probability of participating in the labor market.
What stands out from the results is that married women have a 21.5 percent lower probability of participating than those who are not married.
The presence of childhoods up to 5 years old and childhoods from 6 to 12 years reduces participation by 7.1 and 2.8 percent, respectively, compared to households without childhoods.
In the opposite case, it was observed that the more schooling, the greater the possibility of being part of the labor force, with a 31 percent higher probability of participating for women with university and postgraduate studies compared to those who do not have education. basic finished.
These results show that the gender wage gap is growing and depends on the branches of activity and occupations, as well as having a longer working day.
For this reason, it is emphasized that it is necessary to redistribute care work and unpaid work in homes, which fall mainly on women.
And in the same way, companies allow more women to access high hierarchical positions and enable flexible schedules without this negatively affecting their salary perceptions or the possibilities of promotions, according to the Conasami study.