Women Bill… At a Disadvantage?

The recent data from the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) have already been the subject of various analyses regarding the improvement in Mexican incomes. In general, it's difficult to argue with the government about this merit (leaving aside the controversy over income from public transfers, which is a subject for another analysis). Specifically, today, Mexicans have higher incomes with the Fourth Transformation.

But there is an interesting angle that we believe has been under-explored in the aforementioned biannual survey, and it relates to a symptom of the Mexican labor market: the penalization of women in paid work and motherhood. Faced with a problem as persistent as this, we may have to consider some flaw in our approach. Here are some interesting data:

The average monthly income of men is four thousand pesos higher than that of women; in other words, women have a monthly income 52% lower than that of men.

Second fact: motherhood affects women's income; initially for the better, it worsens as more children arrive. This statistical behavior invites much reading and reflection: according to the National Institute of Human Rights (ENIGH), a woman who has one child receives a higher income than one without children; a mother with one child receives a monthly income of $9,342 pesos compared to $8,619 for a woman without children, but after the second child, the income begins to drop by 5%, and if she reaches four children... she will receive a monthly income 40% lower than if she had no children!

Third fact: men with two children (two is the national average) earn the most money, on average, at almost 16,000 pesos per month.

It's an almost irresistible temptation to resort to clichés when these three facts are superficially assessed, taking refuge in workplace discrimination to explain the gender pay gap. However, the problem stems from elsewhere, and there are three slightly deeper reasons why women, although they earn less, do so in smaller numbers: women are more likely to occupy lower-paid jobs, work fewer hours, and have less career continuity.

Regarding the first aspect, the overrepresentation of women in lower-paying jobs is due to a labor market and employers that push women into other professions or positions more compatible with domestic demands and, in fact, lower-paying. Labor reforms, abundant during the previous and current six-year terms, must address these INEGI figures to responsibly assess and legislate on paternity leave, care policies, and salary transparency as some measures that help mitigate these differences and inconsistencies in a labor market that, in addition to being asymmetrical, remains precarious, poor, and informal.

Now, saying that women work fewer hours is a statement that deserves a fundamental clarification. We mean that women bill fewer hours than men. In more technical language, and based on the latest National Survey on Time Use (ENUT) published by INEGI in 2019, the female gender in Mexico dedicates 68% of their time to unpaid work while men only dedicate 25% to these unpaid tasks.

Where should the balance lie? The most detailed global data comes from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which in its annual Employment Outlook report indicates that the average gender pay gap is 20% against women, meaning the average female income is 20% lower than the average male income. In early 2018, Iceland, which according to international rankings is the most egalitarian country in the world, and Germany (with a gender pay gap higher than the European average) passed tax legislation to make men's and women's salaries public. However, it is one thing for greater transparency to facilitate salary comparisons, and another for it to automatically narrow the gender pay gap.