Exploratory analysis of the determinants of income from the main occupation at the national and regional levels in Chile

Abstract

Income inequality in Chile is a main concern of both, government and workers. To identify the key factors that determine income variation in the main job between workers is appealing in order to approach the inequality problem. Mincer Earning Function (1974) was used to study the key factors of income inequality in Chile. An extended equation including gender, age, and level of education of the worker’s parent’s variables was built up in order to adapt data to Chilean reality. Cross sectional data analysis was conducted to tackle the country’s reality. The results showed that the key factors to income inequality are: genre, level of education, work experience and age.