Income Inequality for Employees with Higher Education During the Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected employability in different measures, especially workers with a basic educational level and women, contrary to this, employment increased for workers with a higher level, the increase being greater for women. In this study we will analyze how the pandemic affected workers with higher education, identifying inequality by sex, age group and professional training, in addition to measuring the impact on the income of the Economically Active Population (EAP). The data for the analysis comes from the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), for the years 2019 to 2021. The methodology used is the technique of random imputation of missing data (MAR), the Gini inequality index (IG), and the Mincer income equation. The main results show that the inequality between men and women decreased from 3% to 1.2% in the period of the beginning of the confinement, in addition it is distinguished that it favors women with higher level studies. Regarding age, the gap grew as the age of the interviewee increased; On the other hand, for workers with higher education, inequality decreased for those with a master's degree. Finally, in terms of admission, during the course of the pandemic as in the areas of Humanities, Social Sciences and Behavioral Studies, Information Sciences, Business and Administration, Mathematics and Statistics, and Veterinary Medicine, admission was better for women.