WOMEN WAGES AND ECONOMIC-CRISIS IN COSTA-RICA

This study examines the changes that occurred in male-female earnings and wage differentials in Costa Rica during the economic crisis of the early 1980s. In Section II it notes male-female earnings and wage differentials increased during the recent economic crisis and stabilization (1980-83) and decreased with the recovery (1983-86) in Costa Rica. Possible explanations for these changes and an econometric model for differentiating among competing explanations is presented. Section III describes the data used to estimate the equations presented in Section II. Section IV presents the results of the estimations of the equations presented in Section II, and I discuss which explanations for the increase in the male-female wage differential are consistent with the results obtained in the estimations. Section V presents concluding comments. The increase in the male-female wage differential during the recession was due primarily to the influx of less educated women into the labor fource in response to falling real earnings for the primary family worker. The falling real earnings that accompanied the recession led to an influx of female workers into the labor force. The women entering the labor force had less education than the women already in the labor force; therefore the ratio of the education of employed women relative to that of employed men fell. -from Author