Trends in Wage Inequality for Cohorts of Brazilian Black and White Women

Ana Oliveira, Federal University of Minas Gerais

We analyze trends of wage inequality of the Brazilian female labor force, by race, during the 1980s and 1990s, a period marked by decreasing fertility, increasing levels of education, female labor force participation. The main hypothesis is that the racial wage gap is determined both by individual and occupational differences. Increasing returns to skills and increasing demand for skilled labor result in a divergence of wages growth between high and low skilled workers. This increasing gap results in an increase of wage inequality by race. To interpret trends, we take into account race differences in marriage patterns, fertility, household arrangements, educational levels, labor market participation, skill levels, occupational location and earnings, distinguishing between period and cohort measures. We use 1987-1999 Brazilian Household Sample Surveys data to examine the importance of within/ between-cohort changes for black and white women. Earnings functions are estimated from the pooled time-series of these cross-section data.