Gender Wage Discrimination in the Philippine Labor Market

This research seeks to quantify the extent that discrimination can explain the gender wage gap in the Philippine labor market. Today, it is fairly well established that women trail behind men in many domains in developing countries, and that this can potentially have far-reaching impacts on human and economic development. On average, women earn significantly less than men in the Philippines. It is uncertain, however, whether this wage gap is due to different levels of productive skills, or if employers discriminate based on gender. Using the 2008 Philippine Labor Force Survey, this research adopted the OaxacaBlinder decomposition method to separate out the portion of the gender wage gap that is due to labor market discrimination from that due to differences in productive skills. The variables used to assess the portion that is attributed to differences in productive skills include education and experience. The results of this study suggest that although working women have a higher average level of education and are more likely to work in higher paying occupations, they still earn significantly less than men because of high levels of discrimination. Discrimination against women in the Philippine labor market is more intense in the rural than in the urban sector. The results of this study suggest that legislation to promote equal pay for women and men in the same jobs could be an effective way to reduce labor market discrimination against women in the Philippines.