Figure 5. Annual changes in the labor income Gini, Latin America and selected countries, ca. 1993–2003 and ca. 2003–13 <!-- Start of picture text --> 0.8 Argentina Uruguay Peru<br>Colombia<br>0.4 SwedenDenmark United Kingdom United StatesPanama Mexico Honduras Paraguay<br>0.0 FinlandSwitzerland KazakhstanItaly Chile<br>Greece Israel Nicaragua<br>-0.4 Germany Ireland El Salvador Bolivia<br>Mauritius<br>Philippines Brazil<br>-0.8<br>-1.2<br>-1.6<br>15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55<br>Labor earnings Gini, ca 1993 (Gini points)<br>0.8 Germany France<br>Denmark<br>0.4 Switzerland Sri Lanka Costa Rica<br>Ireland<br>United States<br>0.0 Finland Sweden Poland Israel Mexico Honduras<br>El Salvador<br>-0.4 Greece Colombia Brazil<br>-0.8 Kazakhstan Kyrgyz Republic Bolivia<br>Argentina Ecuador Peru<br>-1.2 Nicaragua<br>Venezuela, RB<br>-1.6<br>15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55<br>Labor earnings Gini, ca 2003 (Gini points)<br>LAC Non-LAC<br>ca 1993-2003 (Gini points)<br>Annual change in labor earnings Gini,<br>ca 2003-2013 (Gini points)<br>Annual change in labor earnings Gini,<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ Venezuela, RB and the non–Latin American countries: Global Wage Report, International Labour Organization. Seventeen Latin American countries: SEDLAC database. See annex A.3 for details about the underlying data and Annex B for circa periods. _Note:_ The data have been multiplied by 100. For SEDLAC countries, the sample covers full-time, wage, and self-employed workers 15– 64 years of age. The values of the 1st and 100th percentiles of the earnings distribution were trimmed by each gender-education cell. The Global Wage Report data are not strictly comparable with SEDLAC data. In some countries, different types of surveys were used, and the sample and trimming criteria are different. The size of the bubbles represent the population of the country.

The most pronounced drop in earnings inequality since 2003 was observed in República Bolivariana de Venezuela, although the relevant data are not strictly comparable because they are provided through a harmonization process that differs relative to the process in the rest of Latin America (an International Labour Organization method instead of the SEDLAC method). República Bolivariana de Venezuela is followed by Uruguay (urban), Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina (urban). The sharp contrast among the trends in labor income inequality in Argentina, Nicaragua, and Peru, which experienced large increases in labor income inequality over the 1990s, are of particular interest. In contrast, Costa Rica was the only country in Latin America on which data are available that experienced a widening in labor income inequality in the 2000s and, thus, across two consecutive decades.

The trend reversal in labor inequality can be illustrated through a graphic on the growth of real hourly earnings in Latin America. Thus, figure 6 shows that average earnings in Latin America rose at the bottom, the middle, and the top of the labor income distribution over 2002–13, after experiencing no change or even a slight reductions between the 1990s and early 2000s. The largest increase occurred among workers at the bottom of the earnings distribution, who experienced a rise of more 50 percent in real earnings in 2002–13. In contrast, the most well paid workers—those at the top of the labor income distribution—experienced a modest average earnings increase of 16 percent over the decade. Moreover, workers at the median of the earnings 12