The Role of Skills and Tasks in Gender Gaps in Latin America

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explore gender gaps in the labor market in Latin America, incorporating two relevant factors often overlooked: skills and the type of tasks performed at work. The study is based on data from the 2018 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for four Latin American countries. Among the results of the study, we highlight four key findings. (1) There are significant gender gaps in cognitive skills, which persist and are amplified with age in labor market participation, particularly in numerical fields where the gaps range from 0.18 to 0.36 standard deviations, depending on the country analyzed. (2) There are marked gender gaps in the intensity of abstract tasks in employment, which are partly associated with gaps in cognitive skills. Men perform more intensively abstract tasks by 0.10 standard deviations, which widens to 0.18 after controlling for occupations. However, skill gaps do not fully explain gender segmentation in task types, even within the same ISCO. (3) Including skills and tasks helps to explain around 15% to 12% of the gender wage gaps, which still persist significantly. (4) Given the tasks currently performed by men and women, there is a gender gap in the degree of job threat stemming from increasing automation prospects.