Decomposing the Gender Wage Gap in Tourism: An Endogenous Switching Regression Approach

Abstract

In recent decades, the support of the main international institutions and organisations for the promotion of quality employment and non-discrimination in the labour market, especially for certain disadvantaged groups such as women and young people, has been evident. This support is specifically enshrined in frameworks such as the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Commission's Gender Equality Strategy for 2020-2025, among others. In the context of the Spanish labour market, these issues are particularly relevant due to its marked dualistic nature, which disproportionately impacts vulnerable groups like women, leading to low wages, job insecurity, and social exclusion. The precariousness of employment suffered by women, as well as the gender wage gap and its discriminatory component, are of particular interest in sectors such as tourism, where women's employment is traditionally more disadvantaged. The present research offers a rigorous analysis of the evolution of the determinants of the gender wage gap in the tourism sector, comparing two time periods, highly different from each other, because the labour market underwent significant transformations due to factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent Labour Reform of 2021—events that have particularly affected labour-intensive sectors such as the tourism sector