Women in Latin America earn less than men, although they are more educated.

Regarding the last note, today we presente a study by the Inter-American Development Bank called "New Century, Old Disparities". The study analyzes the wage gap between men and women in Latin America and the main results are:

- Although women have more years of education than men , are still concentrated in lower paid occupations such as teaching, health care or the service sector.
- Men earn 17% more than women in Latin America, when comparing men and women of the same age and the educational level.
- The wage gap has been decreasing in recent years, but at a pace that remains slow.
- It is essential to change household roles and stereotypes to attaining gender equality in the labor market.

                                               Source: Extracted from the IDB article.

Complete note here. 

Minimum wage in the United States

During the State of the Union address President Obama proposed an increase in the minimum wage to 9 dollars (from 7.25). The minimum wage has never been without controversy. Read here and here two comments of two economist.

Productivity vs. wages

The relationship between productivity and wages has changed in the last years in the United States. Read the note here.

Global Wage Report 2013-2013: ILO

The ILO published its "Global Wage Report 2012-2013: Wages and Equitable Growth" which analyzes the differences in wages around the globe and how they have been influenced by the economic crisis. You can also found testimonies and and charts.

Indicators of old-age pension benefits in the Americas

Finally, Chapter 7 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 is aimed at monitoring pension benefits with a perspective of fairness and financial sustainability. By knowing the value of future pension benefits, we can also have a proxy of the debt incurred by social security institutions and governments through their social security pension programs.

Two mail indicators of pension benefits are examined: replacement rates and pension wealth. The average gross replacement rate across CISS-member countries (exluding U.S. and Canada), salaries and gender is 48.9 (average net replacement rate is 54.3). The average gross pension wealth across the distribution of salaries in all LAC countries is 8.4 times the annual salary (average net pension wealth is 9.3)

Individual decisions on retirement

Chapter 3 of the Americas Social Security Report 2012 analyzes how "social security wealth" or "pension entitlements" are generated, and how retirees spend their money. The realization of a retirement even does not depend only, and often not even mainly, upon the parameters of a retirement scheme. Individuals may decide to withdraw from the labor market before the statutory retirement age or to work several years more for reasons of need, family conditions, health, or personal motivation.

These are some of the results of the chapter:
- Individuals work more when their earnings are high and growing, and when they decline or their growth is sluggish, retirement becomes a more attractive option every year.
- More educated individuals tend to retire later in life because earnings growth is higher for them.
- Often workers move from a salaried job to the informal economy to improve their earnings levels.
- Labor market conditions affect workers' decisions on retirement.
- Consumption and work decisions are closely linked. When retirement can induce an excessive fall in consumption, individuals may decide to put it off for a few years.
- Persons seek to stabilize welfare, avoiding alternate periods of high well-being with others of a poor quality of life

Obama's "Job Plan"

Obama challenged Congress to pass his "Job Plan" which aims to revive the U.S. economy through new government spending and tax cuts, including reducing payroll taxes. Complete note here.

Dominican Republic: Low wages support the SDP

Most of the contributions to the Dominican System of Pensions (SDP) corresponds to low wages, with 59% of workers with incomes below RD $ 10,000 ($ 263 USD) and only 13% of over RD $ 25,000 ($ 658 USD). For more information click here.

Mexico: More jobs, less quality

The employment rate in Mexico reached a record high since 2009 with the creation of 271 thousand 253 new jobs in 2011. However, the government recognized the importance of improving the quality of employment and wages. See complete note here.

Are women wages affected by childbearing?

Here you can find a very interesting paper about how having a child lowers a woman's earnings, but how much depends upon her skill level.

Differences between men and women - Part III

Continuing with the same issue, the following figure shows the difference in wages of men and women. The results do not show anything new, in all countries the wages of men are higher than women, although this gap is growing up over the years.

Relative wage of men with respect to women

Economic crisis cut global wage growth by half: ILO

In the “Global Wage Report 2010/11 – Wage policies in times of crisis”, the International Labour Organization (ILO) revealed that the economic and financial crisis has cut global wage growth by half in 2008 and 2009.