Labor Market Experience and Falling Earnings Inequality in Brazil: 1995–2012
The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in other measures of earnings inequality was even larger, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Applying micro-econometric decomposition techniques, t...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Institución: | Instituição de Ensino Superior e de Pesquisa (INSPER) |
| Repositorio: | Repositório Institucional da INSPER |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositorio.insper.edu.br:11224/4238 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://repositorio.insper.edu.br/handle/11224/4238 https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhab005 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | earnings inequality Brazil returns to experience |
| Sumario: | The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in other measures of earnings inequality was even larger, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Applying micro-econometric decomposition techniques, this study parses out the proximate determinants of this substantial reduction in earnings inequality. Although a falling education premium did play a role, in line with received wisdom, this study finds that a reduction in the returns to labor market experience was a much more important factor driving lower wage disparities. It accounted for 53 percent of the observed decline in the Gini index during the period. Reductions in horizontal inequalities – the gender, race, regional and urban-rural wage gaps, conditional on human capital and institutional variables – also contributed. Two main factors operated against the decline: a greater disparity in wage premia to different sectors of economic activity, and the “paradox of progress”: the mechanical inequality-increasing effect of a more educated labor force when returns to education are convex. |
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