Gender wage inequality in inclusive and exclusive industrial relations systems: a comparison of Argentina and Chile

Abstract

Drawing on an empirical and comparative mixed methods analysis of Argentina and Chile, this article investigates arguments about the role of ‘inclusive’ versus ‘exclusive’ industrial relations systems in promoting gender wage equity and enabling attractive wage returns to women investing in higher education. Our findings confirm the importance of Argentina’s inclusive industrial relations system in narrowing gender pay differences to a greater extent than Chile. Nevertheless, Chile’s industrial relations institutions are not wholly exclusive; its high-level statutory minimum wage has played a strongly distributive role in the 2000s and compressed wages in the lower half of the wage distribution. Also notable is the finding from quantile regression that highly educated women in high-paid jobs enjoy a larger wage premium in the class-equal Argentina than in Chile despite a far wider wage gap between low/high-educated workers in Chile overall.