This paper analyzes Chile's 2009 Equal Pay for Equal Work Law (EPL) and its effects on firm pay premiums. The law affected firms with 10 or more workers and specified penalties by firm size, including a disclosure requirement for firms with 200 or more workers. We use matched employer-employee data to estimate worker-firm fixed-effects models, decomposing the firm's contribution to the gender pay gap into bargaining power and sorting channels. The EPL reduces the firm premium gender gap by 6.1%, driven by the bargaining power channel. The effects are larger in firms exposed to higher penalties and disclosure requirements.

This paper provides evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on employment in Chile. During the last two quarters, the pandemic destroyed two million jobs, almost one third of the labor force. To formulate economic policies we must understand why some sectors, occupations, and demographic groups are more affected than others. At the same time, Covid-19 is catalyzing the automation process in emerging markets. We find that sectors with a large fraction of occupations at risk of automation present the most significant contraction in employment. Employment in sectors with a large share of occupations at risk of automation fell between 12 and 8 percentage points more relative to other industries during the second quarter of 2020. This impact is larger in female workers. We also find that factors directly related to the epidemic are significant. Employees in occupations working in proximity to others are more affected by the pandemic, while those in occupations able to work remotely are less affected. We should expect that employment in these occupations should recover faster post-pandemic.

This paper analyzes the Covid-19 pandemic impact of the global process of automation on employment in a developing economy. This is particularly interesting because developing economies characteristics, such as having larger informal sectors and weaker social safety nets, shapes the impact of automation on labor markets. We show that occupations with a higher risk of automation exhibit the most significant employment contraction. More specifically, we find that one standard deviation higher in sectoral share of employment in occupations at risk of automation (OaRA) implied around 7% less employment on average between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2021. The effect on informal employees is three times more in comparison to formal employees, and the estimation for self-employed workers is not statistically significant. We also find that employees in sector with relatively low compared to high wages, both vis-à-vis the US, exhibit a 20% smaller reaction on employment due to the pandemic restrictions. We do not find robust evidence showing that the employment contraction has been larger among female workers or in jobs with higher at-work physical proximity, but we do find a positive relationship related to the capacity of working remotely.

A través de la metodología planteada por Card, Cardoso y Kline (2013), que utiliza un modelo de dos efectos fijos de empleado y firma, este artículo estudia el efecto del poder de negociación de hombres y mujeres sobre la brecha salarial de género. Para el cálculo del modelo se utilizó técnicas estadísticas recientemente planteadas por Ouzad (2008) que se basan en Abowd, Creecy, Kramarz (2002). Para esto se usó la base de datos del Seguro de Cesantía chileno, que tiene una rica información conectada de empleado-firma, lo cual permite seguir la movilidad mensualmente de los individuos en distintas firmas entre los años 2002 y 2013. Los resultados encontrados para el caso chileno son que la brecha salarial de género es de 27,4 % y que el poder de negociación explica aproximadamente el 27% de la brecha salarial, superando el resultado encontrado en Portugal (Card, Cardoso y Kline, 2013). Además, se encuentra que las mujeres aumentan su salario aproximadamente un 15% menos, en promedio, que los hombres al cambiarse de firma. Todos estos resultados son comparados y discutidos con los encontrados en Portugal en el estudio de Card, Cardoso y Kline (2013).