Unveiling the truth about tourism labour precarity in Argentinian cities

Purpose This paper aims to study the role of tourism specialisation on tourism labour precarity in Argentinian cities, considering urban primacy. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose an econometric model that iterates between alternative labour precarity measures explained by the economic sector (tourism, rest of services and rest of economy) and tourism specialisation at the city level. They build three geographical groups based on Argentinian urban agglomerates: the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, tourism specialised cities and non-tourism specialised cities. The authors further distinguish between big and small cities according to their urban primacy. The main sources of data are the Permanent Household Survey and the Hotel Occupancy Survey from the Argentinian National Statistics and Census Institute for the period 2007–2017. Findings The authors find that as tourism specialisation grows, the incidence of precarious labour conditions in tourism goes down. Working in this sector increases the chances of having a precarious job, particularly for non-legal outcome variables. However, tourism specialisation and urban primacy generate a mitigating effect on these negative results. Originality/value The authors focus on tourism labour conditions in Argentinian cities, using different measures of labour precarity from a legal perspective, (namely, legal informality) and a non-legal one (including productive informality, part-time work and non-permanent occupation). The authors follow an innovative approach to this matter in the tourism sector, as they consider both tourism specialisation at the city level and urban primacy. This is the first article addressing these issues not only for Argentina but also for Latin America.