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International migration and the gender wage gap

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez*
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Camino al Ajusco 20, Col. Pedregal de Santa Teresa, Mexico City10740, Mexico
Jaime Lara
Affiliation:
División de Negocios, Universidad de Monterrey, Av. Ignacio Morones Prieto 4500 Pte., San Pedro Garza García, N.L.66238, Mexico
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: rmcampos@colmex.mx
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Abstract

This article analyzes the effect of international migration on the wage gap between women and men who remain in Mexico. We use historical distance to the U.S. border over early twentieth-century railroad networks as an exogenous factor causing changes in the relative supply of men and women, due to predominately male migration. A 10% decrease in the relative labor supply of men tends to increase the wage gap between women and men by approximately 1.1 percentage points, suggesting that they are not perfect substitutes. However, the results imply a greater elasticity of substitution between men and women than that suggested by previous studies.

Type
Research Paper
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2021

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