¿Por amor o por dinero? Un estudio de la prima salarial por matrimonio en Colombia
| Autor | Sami Gabriel Coavas Blanquicett, Laura Gómez Duarte |
| Páginas | 71-89 |
Este es un artículo OpenAccess bajo la licencia CC BY(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
ISSN 1657-4206 e-ISSN 2462-8107 Vol. 20 No. 42 PP. 70-89 DOI: 10.17230/ecos.2016.42.4
Research Article
for love or for money? A study of the
mArriAGe wAGe premium in ColombiA
¿Por amor o por dinero? Un estudio de la prima
salarial por matrimonio en Colombia
Sami Gabriel Coavas Blanquicetta, Laura Gómez Duarteb*
Abstract
Being married may raise worker productivity and increase the probability of
remaining in a job and, as consequence, obtaining a wage premium. Yet, this
eect may be dierent for males and females. In developing countries, such as
Colombia, the premium may be larger than in developed countries due to the
diering social norms and labor market structures. Using cross-sectional data
from Colombian Household Surveys, this paper examines the marriage wage
premium and its evolution in Colombia both at the aggregate level and by gen-
der. We find a marriage wage premium for both male and female populations;
this wage premium is explained by the greater human capital endowment in
married people and to employer favoritism due to the “social norms” which
consider being married an appropriate behavior and reward it.
Resumen
Estar casado podría aumentar la productividad de los trabajadores y aumentar sus
posibilidades de conservar su puesto de trabajo y como consecuencia, un salario
mayor. Sin embargo, este efecto puede ser diferente si consideramos el género.
En los países en desarrollo, como Colombia, la prima salarial puede ser mayor
que en los países desarrollados debido a las normas sociales y diferencias en la
estructura del mercado laboral. Usando la Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares
(GEIH), este trabajo examina la existencia de la prima salarial por matrimonio
en Colombia y su evolución, se hace para toda la población y diferenciando por
género. Encontramos una prima salarial matrimonio para ambas poblaciones
masculina y femenina; esta prima salarial se explica por la mayor dotación de
Key words: Married, non-married,
Wage Gap, Marriage, Wage
Premium, Colombia.
Palabras clave: Brecha salarial,
prima salarial, matrimonio,
casados, no casados, Colombia
JEL classification: C31, G14, G15
Received: 07/04/2016
Accepted: 11/05/2016
Published: 17/06/2016
a, b. Universidad EAFIT, Colombia.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lauragod@gmail.com
PP 72 | 111
Ecos de Economía: A Latin American Journal of Applied Economics | Vol. 20 | No. 42 | 2016
For love or for money? A study of the marriage wage premium in Colombia
capital humano en las personas casadas y al favoritismo empleador debido a las "normas sociales"
que consideran el matrimonio como una conducta apropiada y se recompensa.
1. Introduction
Marriage creates the need to rethink the way men and women participate in the labor market due to
the interdependence of the decisions that individuals have to make once they decide to be together.
For this reason policymakers in the United States (Ahituv, A., & Lerman, R. I., ) build family-re-
lated provisions into welfare legislation, conscious of the link between family structures and poverty.
This interdependence, in turn, aects employer’s behavior due to the presence of associated factors,
such as trustworthiness, stability, and the productivity of the employee, creating dierent treatment of
married and non-married populations. Moreover, employer behavior may be dierent for individuals
of dierent genders due to the dierent roles that males and females have within households. While
there is some evidence that shows a wage premium independent of the individual´s gender (Hidalgo,
); other studies indicate that married men earn more than non-married men, but married women
do not earn more than non-married women. This phenomenon for females is called the motherhood
penalty. In Colombia women without children earn on average .% more than mothers (Gamboa, L.
F., & Zuluaga, B., ). However, (Olarte, L. & Peña, X., ) found that the motherhood penalty is
.%. Therefore, the existing evidence on the size of the penalty is not conclusive.
The eects of marriage on men and women’s wages can be ambiguous; it depends on the hou-
sehold role of each partner and their labor force participation, as well as the household structure. In
accordance with Social Trends Institute & Child Trends (), in Colombia % of the population
in the reproductive age, ranging between and years old, is legally married, the lowest share in
Central and South America and worldwide. This rate can be compared to the share in Costa Rica of
% and in Egypt of %. This estimate of the Colombian share coincides with the results of the Gran
Encuesta Integrada de Hogares, that found shares of .% in , .% in , and .% in .
According to Charry () women’s labor participation has increased substantially in recent
decades. As such, Colombia is an excellent country to study marital wage gaps in the context of an
emerging country that formerly had a traditional family structure.
Researchers have had less interest in the marital wage premium for women, This paper analyzes
this issue because we argue that women are increasinglyi important to the labor market. There are
several studies of marriage wage premium in many countries or places such as the United States,
Denmark, Great Britain, China, South Africa, Australia, Sweden among others, but in South America
Brazil is the only country with a study of the marital wage premium. This paper is the first to examine
this premium in Colombia.
This paper explores marriage wage premium (or penalty) in Colombia and its evolution over time
using data from the Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares for the years , and (GEIH
, and, ). These years were selected because these surveys have national representation
and comparability and allow an overview of developments over a timeline of five years. To ensure
the robustness of our results we employ parametric and non-parametric methods that allow a more
accurate estimation of the marriage wage premium. In particular, we use the two methodologies of
Blinder-Oaxaca () and Ñopo ().
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba