Earnings inequality in Brazil (1960-2015): new data and a long-run synthesis

• Grant number: 18/13863-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): November 09, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal researcher: Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche
• Grantee: Rogério Jerônimo Barbosa
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07616-7 - CEM - Center for Metropolitan Studies, AP.CEPID

Abstract

The aim of this project is to disentangle long-run from short-run determinants of earnings inequality in Brazil, between 1960 and 2015. There are two most important working hypotheses. The first one is that the dynamics of supply and demand for skilled labor (human capital) is an always active force, but in the short-run, it has moderate intensity. Its effects would be more expressive and identifiable after accumulated over generations. The second hypothesis, complementary to the first one, is that sudden movements of the inequality indexes in the short-run are due to institutional factors: in particular, to the wage policy and to occupational rules and organizations that regulate and structure the labor market. These hypotheses will be tested with the use of a broader informational basis, which is to be built by the compilation of documents and reports, tax data, and microdata. The use of modern methods and quantitative techniques will allow us to construct a more complete historical series, trying to correct for the well-known underestimation of the income in household surveys. The dissemination of these data will be a by-product of the research. This research intends to elaborate a synthetic and historically comprehensive interpretation, based on a revised and more precise description of the earnings inequality trends. The main expected contribution, from the theoretical point of view, is the identification of the different timings of the economic mechanisms (the supply and demand for education), and the sociopolitical mechanisms (the minimum wage policy and the institutional contours of the occupational structure). (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MEDEIROS, MARCELO; BARBOSA, ROGERIO J.; CARVALHAES, FLAVIO. Educational expansion, inequality and poverty reduction in Brazil: A simulation study. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, v. 66, APR 2020. (18/13863-0)

PRATES, IAN; BARBOSA, ROGERIO J.. COVID-19 and Employment: Insights from the Sub-Saharan African Experience. INDIAN JOURNAL OF LABOUR ECONOMICS, v. 63, n. 1, p. 31-35, OCT 2020. (18/13863-0)