Discriminatory groups in Mexico and their relationship with labor informality

Abstract

Discrimination and labor informality are pending issues on Mexico's public agenda. According to official figures, seven groups are typically discriminated against in the country: people with religious diversity, ethnic and Afro-descendant groups, adolescents, the elderly, the disabled, migrants and women. In the case of labor informality, close to 60% of the country's working population indicates that they do not have access to social security through their employment, i.e., they are informal. The objective of this research is to estimate the probabilities of typically discriminated groups to opt for informal employment. Using microdata analysis of the National Survey on Discrimination (Enadis) 2022 and dichotomous Logit models, it is observed that older adults are more likely to enter informal employment in Mexico, followed by indigenous people, with probabilities of 77% and 68%, respectively.