Theses Doctoral

Women's Employment in Mexico

De la Cruz Toledo, Elia

Employment rates of Mexican women increased 26 percentage points in the last 23 years. The underlying factors driving this trend are the main motivation for this study. My two explanatory hypotheses are the following: there is a lower 'motherhood penalty,' and a higher preschool enrollment encouraged women's employment. In addition, I estimate the gender gap in weekly wages and wages plus employer-provided benefits. To test these two hypotheses, I decompose changes, over the last two decades, in payoffs and endowments of 'motherhood.' Second, I measure the effect of changes in preschool enrollment on mothers' employment. In addition, I also estimate the gender gaps in wages and wages plus employer-provided benefits, incorporating a more precise measure of job experience than previously used, and measures of cognitive ability and non-cognitive traits (formerly unaccounted for in Mexican studies). My goal is to provide an explanation of the mechanisms that encouraged women's employment in Mexico, and to estimate the possible gender differences in earnings that might prevent a potentially larger progress of women in the Mexican labor market.

Geographic Areas

Files

  • thumnail for DelaCruzToledo_columbia_0054D_12144.pdf DelaCruzToledo_columbia_0054D_12144.pdf application/pdf 1.23 MB Download File

More About This Work

Academic Units
Social Work
Thesis Advisors
Waldfogel, Jane
Degree
Ph.D., Columbia University
Published Here
July 7, 2014