Assessing the glass ceiling and sticky floor effects in the Argentinian tourism sector

Abstract

This paper examines the gender wage gap in the Argentinian tourism sector. We use microdata from the Permanent Household Survey 2018-2019 and implement the Machado and Mata quantile decomposition method with an innovative sample selection correction. We find that the gender wage gap in tourism sector and its subsectors is not constant throughout the wage distribution. In the whole tourism sector, the gap is greater at the bottom of the wage distribution and is explained by discrimination against women. In hospitality, the gap increases over the distribution suggesting a glass ceiling effect explained by discrimination. In restaurants, however, the gap is greater at the bottom of the distribution, which provides evidence of a sticky floor effect due to differences in individuals’ endowments. Finally, the gap in travel agencies, cultural, sports and entertainment services remain relatively constant across the wage distribution.