findings:all countries decreased brawn requirements (smallest change in India, 0.2ppts; largest in Thailand 15ppts); decreased labour market gender inequality in Brazil; largest steady LM inequality in India; mixed results for Mexico and Thailand
channels:reduced requirement for physical labour (switching 'brawn' to 'brain'); switching to e.g. service-oriented labour
findings:Brazil closed wage gap the fastest, though widened more recently; Thailand/India mixed results
channels:reduced returns on brain intensive occupations in Brazil; different LM skill structure in Thailand/India, context dependency of structural changes
direction:1# -1 neg / 0 none / 1 pos
significance:1# 0 nsg / 1 msg / 2 sg
notes:
annotation:|
A cross-country analysis on the impacts of structural changes in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and India from 1987 to 2008, and its effects on female labour market participation and the gender wage gap.
Basing its analysis on the theory of capital displacing brawn in production for transition economies, it finds that all countries had reduced brawn requirements over time, though with large heterogeneity:Thailand lead the change with 15 percentage points while India had the smallest change with 0.2 percentage points.
Following this, there was the largest steady labour market participation inequality in India, while there were mixed results for Mexico and Thailand, with Brazil having female employment shares changes similar to that of the United States.
The channels here are seen as a reduced requirement for physical labour replaced by for example more service-oriented economies ('brawn' to 'brain').
For female wage shares, in Brazil the wage gap closed most rapidly, though it began widening in 2005, while Thailand and India had converging but mixed changes.
In Mexico, while the gap widened during the 1990s, it began closing again afterwards.
The differences in wage gap effects compared to both other countries and the respective country's physical labour market requirements show that contextual structural changes played a large role in each case:
with erstwhile reduced returns on Brazilian returns for brain intensive occupations, the introduction of a female-lead manufacturing sector in Mexico in the 90s, and widely diverging basic labour market skill structures in Thailand and India necessitating subsistence-oriented participation; the results show impacts of structural changes, though limited through a variety of mediating factors influencing each case.
