Female occupational segregation: The glue that masks wage discrimination in a public university in Colombia

This research aims to capture occupa-tional segregation and wage discrimination by gender in the University of Cauca, located in southwestern Colombia, during four periods (2005, 2010, 2015 y 2020). There are few studies in this direction, and the existing ones do not address it in depth, at least in emerging countries. In this sense, it is the first time it has been done for Colombian higher educa-tion institutions. The methodology is quan-titative and it implements the Karmel and MacLachlan Index (KM) in the first case and the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder (KOB) decomposition in the second one. To deepen the analysis panel data information was used for the first time in the KOB decomposition for these issues, which allows evaluating the evolution of segregation over time. The vari-ables analysed include gender, wage, age, years of experience, education level, adminis-trative charges, and academic departments of origin, among others.The information used comes from the official data provided by the Administrative Office of the University of Cauca. This is characterized by being totally anonymous and by exclusively comprising full-time teachers, that is, those with an indefinite term contract. Temporal teachers and/or professors with a defined term contract are excluded, due to the volatility in the employment relation-ship, which would otherwise introduce noise into the analysis. In general, the information shows that alpha professions (better paid, with greater projection and public recognition) have been dominated in the last five years by professors; while beta professions (that is those with lower salaries, little projection and recognition) have been led by women. This preliminary result leads to consider that there is labor and/or wage segregation within this university.The estimates of the KM index showed, firstly, that all professions, both alpha and beta, have at least some segregation in the period analysed, since this is greater than zero. Second, segregation has been low and slightly decreasing over time for beta profes-sions. In fact, it was 0.09 in 2005 and 0.072 in 2020. Third, for alpha professions, the index has been markedly increasing over time, which suggests that the proportion of female teachers who must change professions so that segregation from men was zero is increasing. Regarding wage discrimination, all the differ-ences were negative, which shows that the average salaries of female teachers are lower than those of male teachers and therefore their difference is less than zero. Although the results are only statistically significant for the years 2011, 2014 and 2020, it can be highlighted that these differentials have been decreasing over time. In effect, it was-0.24 log-wage in 2005 and-0.051 log-wage in 2020. These results are partially in line with those obtained in the KM index. Occupational and salary segregation seems to have decreased slightly in recent years in this university, but it still exists. In the case of decomposition change, all the variations in the endowment are positive and significant but are charac-terized as decreasing, which indicates that changes in average wage differentials have been narrowing over time.The empirical evidence suggest that occu-pational segregation still occurs in beta profes-sions traditionally occupied by women despite the low perception of job discrimination by university professors. As for alpha occupa-tions, they maintain male hegemony. The observable characteristics mean that there are differences in the wage modification between male and female teachers, but this is becoming less strong due to the increase in the education level and the decrease in the number of children. There are unobserved discriminatory factors that maintain female wage discrimina-tion in response to cultural factors rooted in the patriarchy and traditionalism of the region where the university is located.