Income gap analysis between people with and without disabilities in unskilled occupations

Abstract

The Mexican labor market shows different patterns of discrimination for disabled people. In this paper we focus on one of these aspects: the income gap between people with and without disabilities. Based on data from the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey of 2010 (enigh), we used two methods: the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and the matching comparison of Hugo Ñopo. The results show an overview of wage inequality affecting people with disabilities. According to the first method, people without disabilities earn 1.7 times more than their peers with disabilities and, according to the second method, 1.3 times more. Decomposition analysis shows that up to 83% of this gap is due to discrimination that affects people with disabilities and is lower once we control for productivity differences. While the matching comparison approach reduces the unexplained gap up to 68.5%.