Abstract

RODRIGUEZ GARCIA, Christofer  and  AGUAYO TELLEZ, Ernesto. Wage discrimination against internal migrants in Mexico. An analysis in the mean and by income decile. Rev. econ. [online]. 2023, vol.40, n.100, pp.108-128.  Epub June 26, 2023. ISSN 2395-8715.  https://doi.org/10.33937/reveco.2023.315.

This paper investigates whether there is wage discrimination against internal migrant male workers in Mexico. For this, a decomposition analysis of Blinder-Oaxaca in the mean and by income decile is carried out, using the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH) of 2020 and controlling for the migrant self-selection problem. It is found that although internal migrants receive (on average) wages 5.5% higher than non-migrant workers, if they received wages similar to non-migrants according to their observable characteristics and self-selection, internal migrants should receive (on average) wages 15.3% higher than non-migrants. It is also found that the poorest migrant workers and those who migrated to the central and south-east regions of the country are the ones with the highest levels of wage discrimination. Given the data limitation, it is not possible to consider migration time, skills assimilation, or return migration.

Keywords : internal migration; discrimination; wages; deciles; quantile regression.