This is especially important since data indicate wage gaps are closing very slowly, in large part due to women’s exclusion from high-paid jobs. A good deal of research shows that once employed, gender and racial inequality is largely attributable to job segregation. Even in rapidly growing middle-income countries, which are experiencing industrial upgrading, we observe evidence of defeminization of manufacturing employment (Tejani and Milberg20i6). As a result of the higher consumption rates of low-income groups, higher minimum wages also stimulate aggregate demand and job growth, reducing women's unemployment and offsetting negative effects of higher female wages on female unemployment. Evidence from Latin America’s decade of inequality reduction indicates that the gender employment gap was narrowed in the 2000s in part due to higher minimum wages in a number of countries (Braunstein and Seguino 2012). Because the employment data are broad, they do not allow us to assess the quality of employment.