Mercado de trabajo y condicionamiento por color de piel en grandes centros urbanos de la Argentina

Abstract

Discrimination by aspect, and more particularly, differential treatment for people whose appearance is classified as indigenous or non-European, is a problem rarely addressed in studies of inequality in Argentina. Moreover, the explanation of these mechanisms is often not related to inequalities derived from class conditions. As a consequence, discrimination by physical aspect (skin color) in Argentina remains unnoticed for most academic and public knowledge, “invisible”. Therefore, all the troubles faced by people who possess these traits stay unseen or overlook. Such unequal treatment, it is worth noting, is rooted in racist principles toward native people (indigenous) associating them with crime, lack of personal capacities and knowledge, and in general, socially inferior. This article investigates the impact of unequal treatment based on physical appearance –in particular skin color– in labor achievements in a sample of 2.500 people in large urban centers of Argentina in 2007. The discrimination based on physical aspect, as an effect of mechanisms based in the racialization of social interactions, shows the continuity of symbolic and material hierarchizing principles that obstruct the possibility of greater equality in the daily development of the conditions of people's lives.