Abstract

AGUILERA FERNANDEZ, Albany  and  CASTRO LUGO, David. Labor Qualification and Wage Inequality: a Methodological Exercise by Conglomerates. Econ: teor. práct [online]. 2018, n.49, pp.65-91. ISSN 2448-7481.  https://doi.org/10.24275/etypuam/ne/492018/aguilera.

In many studies related to the labor market analysis, it has been requested to have a classification according to skill level; however, there is no theoretical basis that provides an alternative to measure the workers skills. Traditionally, this is approximate by the education level, the employment that the worker develops or the labor remuneration. The main purpose of this study is to present a methodological exercise based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering techniques to classify the labor force according to qualification level. It is presented an example to the case of Mexico. In this case we considered occupational data, educational attainment and average wage to group together three labor categories with similar skill characteristics: skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. The main results confirm that the criterion selected to classify workers influences the wage inequality values.

Keywords : Skill Classification; cluster method; wage inequality; trade; C14; F16; J21; J24; J31.