IUSSP 2017. THEME 6 - THEME 8. Education and labor force. Changes - - PDF document

1 IUSSP 2017. THEME 6 - THEME 8. Education and labor force. Changes and continuities in labor mobility of three generations of women in Mexico Fiorella Mancini Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales. UNAM fiorella@unam.mx Abstract This paper analyses the different work transitions of three generations of Mexican women, from their first job until the age of 30. The objective is two-pronged: (i) to observe informalization, deskilling, de-waging, and tertiarization in the women’s labor market in the past few years and (ii) to analyze how these processes affect female work trajectories. First, the findings indicate that generational changes relating to sector of activity, employment position, occupational status and economic sector are not interchangeable. Second, they appear to reflect that structural mobility in the labor market does not match individual mobility in the female workforce. The results also show that the conditions in which women enter the labor market have a significant impact on their future career opportunities. Introduction Several studies have drawn attention in recent years to the increasing participation of women in Mexican labor markets, their differentiated behavior vis-à-vis men in the world of work and, in general, to the rupture of the male breadwinner model (Rendón 2003, Todaro y Yáñez 2004, García y De Oliveira 2006, OIT-PNUD 2009, Chávez 2010, Maldonado 2010). These findings would also indicate that these processes are articulated with far-reaching social transformations related not only to economic but also cultural and demographic aspects (García y Oliveira 2001; Oliveira, Ariza y Eternod 2002). At the same time, and despite the long tradition of sociological research on social stratification in Mexico (Balán, Browning y Jelín 1977, Muñoz, Oliveira y Stern 1977, Zenteno 2003, Pacheco 2004, Cortés, Escobar y Solís 2007, Solís 2007), there are few studies that are concerned with analyzing -from the labor market approach- the individual mobility of women throughout their career. This paper tries to contribute to this analysis from the review of different labor transitions that can experience women of three generations, from their first employment until the age of

• 30. The generations observed by the Retrospective Demographic Survey of Mexico (EDER

2 2011) allow us to account for different historical moments of the economic development of the country and, with it, to unravel possibilities of explanation regarding social change in the participation of the female labor force. At the same time, longitudinal observation makes it possible to identify transitions in the individual biography of women within the different historical periods. In these sense, the main is two-pronged: (i) to observe informalization, deskilling, de- waging, and tertiarization in the women’s labor market in the past few years and (ii) to analyses how these processes affect female work trajectories. That is, to what extent, processes related to the precariousness of work translate (or not) into the precarization of a certain trajectory. For this, the analysis is based on the study of the first job in order to explore the conditions of entry to the labor market and its relation with the individual mobility of labor trajectories (Blossfeld, 1992). The hypothesis is that the conditions in which a newcomer enters the labor market profoundly modulate the future possibilities of his career (Castel, 2010).

• 1. Data and methods

To do this, information from the Retrospective Demographic Survey (EDER) of Mexico (2011) is used. The Retrospective Demographic Survey (EDER) 2011 is a longitudinal survey, whose general purpose is to collect information on the temporal nature of the sociodemographic processes (migration, education, occupation, nuptiality, fecundity and mortality) experienced by the population of Mexico during the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as on the interrelations of different demographic phenomena in the life trajectories of individuals. The reason for using it in this paper is that it allows longitudinal analysis of the labor transitions of individuals and, therefore, make comparisons of social processes over time. At the same time, longitudinal observation makes it possible to identify transitions in the individual biography

• f women within the different historical periods. The three cohorts observed by the survey

allow us to account for different historical moments of the economic development of the country and, with it, to analyze possibilities of explanation related to social change in the participation of the female labor force. The target population of EDER 2011 is constituted by the cohorts born in the years 1951-1953, 1966-1968 and 1978-1980. For this reason, in

3 this paper only these three generations of study are observed. EDER 2011 cohorts were in the range of 58-60 years old, 43-45 years old and 31-33 years old, respectively, at the time

• f the survey. With the selection of these three cohorts, while it is possible to consider the

diversity of cohorts that represents the behavior of the population of Mexico in very varied contexts of the economic and social development of the country, it is also possible to consider the life experiences of most recent history in Mexico. In fact, the 15-year gap between the study cohorts allows us to interview groups of people who have transited their adult lives in different social, economic and demographic environments that may have particular influences on the labor transitions discussed here. First, the analysis is based on tables of mobility between the first employment and the 30 years with respect to the transitions that occurred in the activity sector, the position at work, the occupational status of the workers and the branch of activity. The reason for constructing tables of labor mobility between the first job and the 30 years old obeys theoretical and methodological questions, simultaneously. From a theoretical point of view, and from the perspective of the life course, the 30 years are a moment in which most of the transitions to adult life have already taken place: leaving school, finishing school, entrance to labor market, departure from the home of origin, formation of unions, birth of the first child and others. Consequently, it is considered a point of comparison sufficiently stable to

• bserve changes in time from the first employment (Coubés, 2004). At the same time, from

the methodological point of view, employment at age 30 is an ideal moment for the analysis

• f labor mobility, since, given the early age of entry into the labor market in Mexico, the

measurement occurs after an average of 10 or 15 years of observation of the individual trajectory. Secondly, the weight associated with the conditionals of informality at the age of 30 is analyzed from multivariate regression models that consider, in particular, the characteristics of the first job among women. Both techniques are intended to test a hypothesis of social change that accounts for structural processes of precariousness of the female labor force at early ages. The study universe consists of those women who worked, at least, for a year throughout their lives and the observation period ranges from the first employment to the 31 years of age for women of three generations (most of the work history of the first cohort

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• ccurs during the 1970s, the second cohort during the 1980s, and the third cohort during the

1990s).

• 2. Results and discussion. Labor transitions from the first job: the difficulty of

being a newcomer to the job market 2.1 Individual female transitions by the economic sector In order to analyze the economic sector and, based on this, the possibility of observing processes of informality in the labor market, we adopted the criteria of Coubés (2004): 1. Agricultural employment, including any occupation in agriculture, fishing or forestry; 2. Non-agricultural employment of micro and small enterprises, consisting of enterprises of five persons or less in trade and services, and enterprises of 15 persons or less in industry; 3. Non- agricultural employment of medium and large companies, comprising those with a higher number of employees (more than five in the tertiary, more than 15 in the industry) and; 4. Public employment that includes workers employed by the three levels of government in the areas of public administration, education sector and health sector. As indicated by Coubés (2004), this categorization combines a differentiation by economic sector (agriculture and non-agriculture), a distinction by institutional sectors (private sector and public sector) and a variation by size of company.

Table 1. Mobility table by sector of activity between the first employment and the 30 years, Mexican women, by cohort First job 30 years Cohort 1951- 1953 Agriculture Micro & small companies Medium & large companies Public Sector Does not work Total Agriculture 6.7 40.2 4.3 0.0 48.9 5.2 Micro & small companies 1.5 45.9 13.3 0.4 39.0 50.6 Medium & large comps. 0.0 14.5 54.9 1.2 29.4 41.0 Public Sector 0.0 3.1 28.4 22.1 46.5 3.2 Total 1.1 31.4 30.3 1.4 35.8 100.0 Cohort 1966- 1968 Agriculture 22.0 23.3 0.0 0.0 54.7 2.3 Micro % small companies 0.0 46.7 19.7 1.3 32.3 40.8 Medium & large comps. 0.0 15.0 51.3 2.8 30.9 49.4 Public sector 0.0 6.1 13.4 62.1 18.5 7.6 Total 0.5 27.5 34.4 6.6 31.1 100.0 Cohort 1978- 1980 Agriculture 21.3 0.0 21.3 0.0 57.4 1.1 Micro & small companies 0.0 40.3 23.1 2.1 34.5 41.0 Medium & large comps. 0.1 16.7 45.1 4.0 34.1 54.2

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Public sector 0.0 4.0 27.7 44.1 24.2 3.7 Total 0.3 25.8 35.2 4.6 34.1 100.0 Source: Elaboration based on Eder, 2011

Table 1 shows that, among women, those who enter the labor market for the first time are increasingly doing so in the formal sector of the economy and, at the same time, less and less in the informal sector, especially between the first and the second cohort. As for the

• ccupational structure, the weight of informality in the economic sector at 30 years falls

between the first cohort and the last one. In recent years, young women have been experiencing a process of formalization of employment related to the increase of female participation in the labor force, with an increase in the educational level of those who enter the labor market and with the delay in starting of the labor trajectories. This formalization of the female work observed at the beginning of the labor trajectories would also be directly conditioned by the selectivity of this population group: they enter in a smaller proportion than men, later than them do, with greater educational credentials, and those who do it, would also enter in better conditions. This trend has actually been observed since the 1990s in Mexico and is a result of a double effect of cohort and the historical period in which have taken place both the process of feminization

• f the labor force as education expansion in the country. Notwithstanding this general trend,

women of the three cohorts are extremely likely to be out of the labor market at age of 30, despite having entered at some previous time. In the three cohorts, the economic sector that expels the most labor force is the micro and small enterprises and it is the formal sector that absorbs this workforce at 30 years of age. This would indicate that the transit from the informality to the formality within the feminine trajectories is a quite probable event between the first employment and the 30 years old. In addition, when the woman has her first job in formal work, she is unlikely to "descend" from there to work in the informal sector at 30 years of age. 2.2 Female occupational transitions In what kind of occupations do young women enter for the first time in Mexico? Table 2 shows that the structure of the occupational status of the first job in this country is relatively stable for women.

Table 2

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Mobility table by occupational status between the first employment and the 30 years, Mexican women, by cohort First job 30 years Cohort 1951- 1953 HNM LNM SW HM LM DNW Total Higher-grade Non- manual workers 91.5 8.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.5 Lower-grade Non-manual workers 5.8 54.6 4.1 2.8 6.5 26.4 31.5 Sales Workers 4.7 6.3 29.4 6.0 5.8 47.9 12.2 Higher-grade Manual workers 0.0 2.7 14.3 35.2 20.5 27.3 10.5 Lower-grade Manual workers 0.0 4.0 7.4 9.5 36.6 42.5 44.3 Total 3.8 20.1 9.6 9.5 21.1 35.8 100.0 Cohort 1966- 1968 Higher-grade Non- manual workers 69.3 14.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 15.9 3.2 Lower-grade Non-manual workers 5.2 52.4 8.3 2.0 7.7 24.5 41.5 Sales Workers 0.0 25.9 24.7 4.4 5.3 39.8 16.7 Higher-grade Manual workers 0.0 15.9 1.3 23.8 13.8 45.3 7.4 Lower-grade Manual workers 1.9 9.1 6.4 6.9 42.4 33.3 31.3 Total 4.9 30.5 9.7 5.5 18.4 31.1 100.0 Cohort 1978- 1980 Higher-grade Non- manual workers 57.4 12.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 34.1 5.6 Lower-grade Non-manual workers 8.4 52.7 5.1 4.0 5.1 24.6 33.3 Sales Workers 1.0 21.9 23.0 4.4 18.1 31.6 23.4 Higher-grade Manual workers 0.0 7.9 6.6 30.8 12.0 42.8 10.6 Lower-grade Manual workers 0.3 9.2 8.6 0.7 35.8 45.4 27.0 Total 6.4 26.7 10.1 5.8 16.9 34.1 100.0 Source: Elaboration based on Eder, 2011

In Mexico, most of the women work in their first job as a low-skilled manual worker. In spite

• f this, between the first and the second cohort, the proportion of those who are inserted in

non-manual occupations increases, and between the first and third cohorts the increase in trade occupations is notable. In the three cohorts, it is mainly the less qualified occupations that expel women from the labor market at the age of 30: trade in the first cohort, commerce and manual activities of high qualification in the second and all type of manual activities in the third. Working in low qualification activities in the first job increases considerably the chances of not working at age 30. Notwithstanding this conclusiveness, the exit from the labor market is not exclusive

• f these activities. The exit from the labor market of women around the age of 30 is a

structural feature of female participation in Mexico. Hence, a clear qualification process is

7 not observed during the course of their career between the first job and 30 years. Generally, women begin their careers in occupations more qualified than men but that advantage of

• rigin is lost with the exit of the market at the end of the observation.

There is also a great internal polarization of the female labor force: in the first job, between low-skilled manual occupations and highly skilled non-manual occupations, and at the age of 30, between the latter and the exit from the market. This makes the transition to better occupational status quite diffuse. In the three cohorts, at age 30, women entering the labor market would have two great possibilities: either they would remain in the same type

• f occupation in which they entered or withdraw from the market.

This observation requires an alternative hypothesis in light of the results on the economic sector: the formalization observed among women of the most recent cohorts may be relatively independent of individual mobility in terms of occupational status. Despite the possibilities

• f these young women to move to a formal job at the age of 30, at the same time, individual

immobility can be found in terms of job qualification. This hypothesis would refer to the increase in the internal heterogeneity of the individual labor trajectories and, in general, the process of individualization and de-standardization of the life course among younger workers (Echarri y Pérez Amador 2007, Mora y Oliveira 2009, Saraví 2009, Mancini 2011, Levy y Wydmer, 2013). In more socially differentiated contexts, and thus with higher levels of

• ccupational diversification, the labor market becomes less rigid in order to allow

differentiated mobility both in its structure and in individual trajectories. At the same time, it would be possible to suggest greater possibilities of intra-category inequalities among women workers today. 2.3 Transitions in women's work position Although in the conditions of structural heterogeneity that characterize the Mexican labor market, salaried employment can not be identified linearly with better working conditions than self-employment, the degree of salarization of a market (and of a society) accounts for the structure on which labor relations are being established, the weights of the institutions of employment and the degree of regulation of the relationship between capital and labor (Weller, 2008). With respect to the employment position in the first job in Mexico, there is a relative salarization process among the women in the last cohort compared to the previous ones.

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Table 3 Mobility table by work position between the first job and the 30 years, women by cohorts First Job 30 years Cohort 1951- 1953 Employer Self- employed Salaried worker Piecework er Unpaid worker DNW Total Employer 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Self-employed 3.8 76.3 4.8 3.5 11.7 5.9 Salaried worker 1.6 8.0 48.6 1.5 2.8 37.6 80.9 Pieceworker 0.0 20.3 20.0 27.2 0.0 32.7 2.9 Unpaid worker 0.0 28.5 21.7 0.0 13.5 36.3 10.3 Total 1.5 14.5 42.4 2.2 3.6 35.8 100.0 Cohort 1966- 1968 Employer 30.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 69.5 0.9 Self-employed 7.1 72.8 9.9 0.0 0.0 10.1 2.0 Salaried worker 1.8 8.0 58.0 1.0 0.8 30.4 88.2 Pieceworker 0.0 17.1 0.0 34.5 0.0 48.5 2.7 Unpaid worker 9.2 3.2 40.7 0.0 12.9 34.1 6.3 Total 2.6 9.1 54.0 1.8 1.5 31.1 100.0 Cohort 1978- 1980 Employer 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 Self-employed 0.0 67.7 22.5 0.0 0.0 9.8 3.5 Salaried worker 1.2 7.1 53.2 0.1 2.7 35.6 89.4 Pieceworker 0.0 16.8 25.8 9.1 0.0 48.3 3.6 Unpaid worker 0.0 26.4 32.7 6.4 28.4 6.0 3.1 Total 1.5 10.1 50.3 0.6 3.3 34.1 100.0 Source: Elaboration based on Eder, 2011

Salaried work is a structural condition of female participation in the Mexican labor market. The vast majority of women, before and now, enter the labor market as an employee, with an increase from the second cohort. At the age of 30, the weight of wage labor is increasing, to the detriment, especially of self-employment. The proportions of women participating in wage-earning activities at the age of 30 are also high when their first job was in the same

• position. The retention capacity of wage labor between the first job and the 30 years increases

as the cohorts are younger. In the third cohort, 23 percent of women entering the labor market as self-employed women were in paid employment at age 30. That value was 5 percent for the first cohort. Women entering with the worst salary conditions at their first job (piecework, without pay, etc.) are the ones that are most likely to leave the labor market at the age of 30, a pattern similar to that observed in occupational status with respect to low-skilled manual workers: at higher levels of precariousness under the conditions of the first job, there would be a better chance of leaving the market at 30 years.

9 2.4 Female transitions by economic branch The following mobility table only shows the economic branch in which women are inserted (and not a more complex combination of sectors) in order to unravel the process of tertiarization of the labor force in recent years and analyze the dynamism of each of the economic branches to absorb young female labor force.

Table 4 Mobility table by economic branch between the first job and the 30 years, women by cohorts First Job 30 years Cohort 1951- 1953 Agriculture Industry & construction Trade & transport Services DNW Total Agriculture 6.7 11.2 7.6 25.6 48.9 5.2 Industry & construction 0.0 36.4 17.8 20.6 25.2 18.4 Trade & transport 0.0 5.1 34.4 19.5 41.1 19.7 Services 1.3 6.7 8.6 47.2 36.3 56.7 Total 1.1 12.1 15.3 35.7 35.8 100.0 Cohort 1966- 1968 Agriculture 22.0 0.0 0.0 23.3 54.7 2.3 Industry & construction 0.0 32.4 5.0 22.5 40.2 18.8 Trade & transport 0.0 8.4 27.8 29.1 34.8 22.7 Services 0.0 6.4 11.5 56.5 25.6 56.3 Total 0.5 11.6 13.7 43.1 31.1 100.0 Cohort 1978- 1980 Agriculture 21.3 0.0 0.0 21.3 57.4 1.1 Industry & construction 0.0 31.0 11.8 18.3 39.0 22.4 Trade & transport 11.5 27.8 29.9 30.8 29.2 Services 0.2 2.6 8.7 55.2 33.4 47.4 Total 0.3 11.5 14.9 39.2 34.1 100.0 Source: Elaboration based on Eder, 2011

Women begin their career in the service sector and this is maintained between the three

• cohorts. However, when this sector is broken down between trade and the rest, it can be
• bserved that the increase in the tertiarization process occurs mainly in the former. That is,

more and more women have their first job in the tertiary sector due to the large increase in women's participation in sales. The tertiarization of the female labor force, in fact, is a process that has historically accompanied the increase of its labor participation. The fact that more than half of young women are working in tertiary occupations at age 30 is a "social inheritance" effect of the first cohort of working women. In fact, what is seen is the greater capacity of services to retain women workers between the first and 30 years of employment and, in turn, to prevent women from leaving the labor market, despite the enormous heterogeneity found in this population.

10 The latter data allow an overall assessment of the four transitions analyzed so far. First, Mexican women have different patterns of structural and individual mobility depending on the type of work transition being analyzed. The data show an increase in formality, salaried work and a more marked tertiarization among the younger cohorts. Second, social changes related to the transformations in the pattern of accumulation would seem to have been less drastic with the female labor force, although some are warned from the cohort that entered the labor market during the decade of the eighties. The very selectivity of women entering the labor market makes them more "immune" to the structural fluctuations of labor demand in recent years where there is more continuity than changes in occupational trajectories. Finally, two complementary considerations: 1. The individual transitions analyzed so far have relatively independent behaviors; 2. Structural mobility does not correspond, point by point, with individual mobility.

• 3. Female labor transitions and social change in Mexico

This section analyzes socio-demographic factors associated with the mobility of female workers between the first employment and the 30 years of age with an emphasis on the study

• f informality. To do this, we proceed to estimate the probability of belonging to the informal

sector at age 30, due to the characteristics of the first job and the cohort of belonging. This exercise is justified because we try to know what characteristics of the first job may be conditioning the labor situation of women at age 30 and, thus, to approach the hypothesis that the first conditions of insertion into the labor market modulate the type of trajectory in the future. Secondly, because we want to know to what extent these probabilities changed

• ver time, or if, as has been pointed out in the descriptive analysis, in reality the female labor

force would be witnessing a gradual process of formalizing labor throughout its trajectories. For this, the study population are all women who were working at 30 years of age. Those who, at that age, had a job in the agricultural sector were excluded from the analysis. The dependent variable was constructed from the partitioning of the economic sector into two categories: formal (medium and large-sized workers and public employment) and informal (female workers in micro and small establishments). Table 6 shows the results of the logistic regression model to evaluate the probability, among the women in the sample, of informal employment at 30 years of age. The odds ratios

11 associated with each of the explanatory variables are presented and the probabilities estimated are shown in the last column of the table.

Table 5 Logistic regression model on the economic sector of women at 30 years of age, Mexico. Variables OR Sig OR Sig OR Sig OR Sig Prob. Est. Cohort Cohort 1951- 1953 0.58 Cohort 1966- 1968 0.74 0.22 1.02 0.93 1.09 0.75 1.15 0.60 0.62 Cohort 1978- 1980 0.73 0.17 1.06 0.81 1.09 0.72 1.15 0.60 0.62 Social background 0.99 0.00 0.99 0.36 0.99 0.27 Educative background 0.96 0.25 Age at first job 7 to 13 0.55 14 to 16 0.90 0.77 1.06 0.87 1.31 0.48 1.75 0.15 0.68 17 to 18 0.32 0.00 0.47 0.03 0.65 0.26 1.29 0.51 0.61 19 or more 0.31 0.00 0.48 0.02 0.61 0.18 1.18 0.65 0.59 Education level No instruction 0.95 Up to primary school 0.08 0.02 0.08 0.01 0.10 0.02 0.65 Up to secondary school 0.04 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.54 Up to upper middle 0.03 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.07 0.00 0.55 University or more 0.01 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.03 0.00 0.32 Labor characteristics Number of jobs 1.01 0.91 1.00 0.96 Position first job Salaried worker 0.58 Not salaried worker 3.01 0.00 1.76 0.07 0.71 Economic sector first job Agriculture 0.76 Micro & small company 0.78 0.78 0.71 Medium & large firm 0.18 0.05 0.35 Public sector 0.05 0.00 0.12 n 789 789 789 789 Pseudo R2 0.09 0.15 0.16 0.24 Source: Elaboration based on Eder, 2011

Among Mexican women, the birth cohort has no significant effect on the probability of being in the informal sector at age 30. The weight of the historical conditions is less determinant for the female labor force and this indicates that the historical periods affect in different ways the individuals of the same generation, given the heterogeneity of the cohort itself (or the so- called composition effect). Due to the selectivity of this population, women are less sensitive to structural changes in the labor market, since, as we have seen, market exit is more at hand as a viable alternative. Nonetheless, and despite what is observed in the mobility tables, the probability of belonging to the informal sector of the economy at 30 years of age has been

12 and remains relatively high for the totality of the female labor force. This would indicate that although the process of individual informalization of the female labor force over the years would not be witnessed, the opposite process is not observed either. In this sense, it might be suggested that the informality of the young workforce, among women, is a relatively structural feature of the Mexican labor market that has been enduring different generations

• f women and throughout different historical moments.

On the other hand, when only the cohort is considered and the age at the first job, the social origin of the workers (as a direct effect) is significant and in the expected direction: the young women who come from households with higher levels of socioeconomic well- being have lower probability of being inserted into informality at the age of 30 (a kind of generational reproduction of formality). However, when incorporating the educational level

• f women workers, socioeconomic origin fails to explain the probabilities of informality.

This estimator matters when women's schooling is not taken into account, but then their effects are "hidden" behind the educational level of women (indirect effect). In this sense, the structural effects imposed by social class continue to have a fundamental explanatory capacity to know the future of female labor trajectories in this country. A similar behavior is observed in the case of the age at first job. At first, the earlier the age at the beginning of labor trajectory, the more likely it is to belong to the informal sector at age 30. However, when other characteristics of the first job are added, the age of entry into the labor market is no longer significant. In other words, if the entry into the labor market was carried out under certain conditions of protection and security, it would not be decisive at what time of the life course that transition occurs. In general, young people represent the majority of newcomers to the labor market in Mexico and, as such, the age variable hides a deeper determination that refers to the characteristics of the first job: rather than being young, the real obstacle to the formality is to be a newcomer to the job market. It would seem, then, that the important thing is to begin the beginning of the labor career with the highest possible security conditions to reduce the probability of informality in the future. This is reinforced by the behavior of the two remaining variables. Starting the labor trajectory as a self-employed worker increases almost twice the probability of being in the informal sector at age 30. Similarly, when the first job is in the micro or small firm, the probability of being an informal worker at 30 is 71 percent, compared with 35 percent of the

13 formal female workers in the first job. In this sense, the “labor capital” of the first job becomes a kind of "occupational inheritance" to determine the future conditions of female employment. Finally, among these young women, the almost exclusive strength of schooling and educational levels are fundamental. Even considering the conditions of the first job and the social background of these workers, education is the variable that, by excellence, determines the probability of working in the informal sector at 30 years of age among Mexican women. In fact, for those without education there is no way out: their probability of belonging to the informal sector at age 30 is 95 percent and is also three times lower for those with higher educational levels, confirming the internal polarization that is observed in this group of workers. Data also indicate that the characteristics of the first job matter not only because of the initial work position but also with respect to the economic sector of activity: having worked in a formal company or in the public sector during the first job greatly reduces the probability

• f informality at the end of the observation. This would indicate, once again, that beyond the

moment the first job occurs, it is the conditions of the beginning of the labor trajectories of workers that strongly determine the future possibilities of labor insertion for these young women.

• 4. Final thoughts

In this paper, individual transitions were analyzed between two important moments in the female workers' career (the first job and the 30 years of age) to identify how much these transitions have changed over time and with what factors these transformations are associated. Overall, the data show the typical heterogeneity of the female labor market, with huge intermittency and lower levels of participation than men, albeit at a sharp increase in recent years. Under this proviso, the first thing to be said is that the generational changes relating to labor transitions in the economic sector, employment position, the occupational status and the branch of the economy are not interchangeable processes or that go hand in hand. Findings appear to reflect that structural mobility in the labor market does not match

14 individual mobility in the female workforce. The economic and social transformations of the last decades, taken simultaneously, hide an enormous diversity and heterogeneity of possible results in the trajectories of these women, where the individual transitions present relatively independent behaviors, evidencing that the structural mobilities of the labor market they do not correspond, point by point, with the individual mobilities of the female labor force. While there is a relative formalization of this labor force (and only relative to the extent that the probabilities associated with informality at 30 years of age are not significant by birth cohort), there is an intense process of tertiarization in the third cohort, without this being manifested in ascending occupational mobility processes. In fact, there are no significant changes as the cohorts are younger in terms of occupational mobility except for the slight increase in sales workers, but in general the female occupational structure of the young people of Mexico in the last fifty years remains virtually unchanged. The tertiarization of the observed labor force occurs almost exclusively in the trade

• sector. This could be due to two fundamental reasons: firstly, because women were never

significantly involved in manufacturing, and secondly, because the increase in women's participation in the labor force in recent years occurs precisely and directly in these sectors, without going through other types of activities. What is observed, in this sense, is that female labor transitions are relatively stable in time (individual and social), partly because of their

• wn selectivity: they enter the labor market to a lesser extent than men do, they usually do

so later and more qualified, remain almost exclusively in salaried employment and their entry is almost directly to the services sector or to commerce. In fact, in the three cohorts, self-employment has a very low weight among young women and, in general, women workers remain in this work status for a long time. This would be related to two great characteristics of the Mexican labor market. First, it is a specification that refers, to a large extent, to occupational segregation by sex. In general, the

• ccupational insertion that is most related to self-employment is the small trader or craft

activities such as construction or other manual activities related to work at home, with men being the most involved in this type of occupational categories. Secondly, it also refers to a structural characteristic of the female labor force that historically occupies itself as an employee, insofar as this type of insertion allows some access to social security, both for herself and for her close relatives, especially children.

15 In any case, these transformations in the different labor structures do not occur in the same period: some are more strongly felt between the first and second cohorts, others are sharper between the second and third one, and in certain cases, the change is gradual between the first and last cohort. Second, results show that individual mobility flows in the younger generations are increasingly heterogeneous and diverse. It would be admitted that the new model of accumulation, sustained in the globalization and internalization of the economy, enables and demands not only a deepening of the precariousness in the workers' lives, but also a greater heterogeneity in certain occupational careers (and an increase in the diversity of youth and female labor trajectories). This would imply processes of individualization and diversification of the labor trajectories that would account for a greater porosity of the labor structures to resist the transformations of the labor market in the last years and whose nexus should be observed in more depth. In this sense, these findings would contribute to the theoretical discussion about the competition between structural inequalities and dynamic inequalities in the youth labor market as a result of the new processes of social individualization (Evans 2008) and, in addition, confirm results observed in works previous qualitative research carried out in Mexico that have reached similar conclusions (Saraví 2009, Mora y De Oliveira 2009, Mancini 2014). Finally, data show the importance of the first job. Findings show that the conditions in which women enter the labor market have a significant impact on their future career

• pportunities. A good job in the beginning can determine the future possibilities of labor

trajectories, with relative independence of their moment of occurrence or how many transitions are experienced during the life course of women. This would indicate, among

• ther things, that it is essential to consider the experience, the temporality and the

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