ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Work, Employment and Organizations
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1636282
This article is part of the Research TopicStandard Employment Enclaves, Precarity and Informality: Explaining Employment Configurations in the Global SouthView all 8 articles
Segmentation and regional analysis: Labor typologies and geographic inequality in Antofagasta and La Araucanía, Chile
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidad de Las Americas, Santiago, Chile
- 2Universitat Bremen, Bremen, Germany
- 3Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, Spain
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This article aims to characterize the geographic variability of labor markets in the regions of Antofagasta and La Araucanía, analyzing their structural similarities and differences. To this end, an inter-and intraregional approach is proposed, which makes it possible to identify common and specific elements in both territories, based on multivariate sociodemographic, contractual, and occupational information. Through the combined application of factorization and cluster analysis techniques, typological systems of labor segmentation are constructed for both regions, located at the northern and southern extremes of the country, respectively. This reveals the structural heterogeneity of regional labor matrices, highlighting not only regular and protected labor relations but also those that are unregulated, unprotected, temporary, and informal. The analysis also considers the influence of urban and rural contexts on the configuration of labor and productive activities and conditions. Chile is a heterogeneous country in terms of its productive matrix, and although extractive activity is a common denominator, this study demonstrates an unequal configuration of both regional segmentation systems. This reveals distinct inequalities in the labor insertion of men and women in terms of access to decent and protected jobs. It also reveals some patterns of insertion of Indigenous peoples and migrants in the different urban and rural areas of both regions. In this way, the analysis contributes to an understanding of regional labor dynamics, highlighting the need for differentiated and territorially situated policies that recognize the structural diversity of employment in both regions.
Keywords: Labor segmentation, Regional analysis, Regional employment structure, Antofagasta and La Araucanía, Labour precarity
Received: 27 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Blanco Sepúlveda, Julián-Vejar and Osorio– Rauld. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dasten Julián-Vejar, Universitat Bremen, Bremen, Germany
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