Ageing Poorly? : Accounting for the Decline in 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 earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Al...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/848401490881734831/Ageing-poorly-accounting-for-the-decline-in-earnings-inequality-in-Brazil-1995-2012 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26359 |
| Summary: | 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 earnings inequality was even
larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio
falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional
explanation of a falling education premium did play a role,
an RIF regression-based decomposition analysis suggests that
the decline in returns to potential experience was the main
factor behind lower wage disparities during the period.
Substantial reductions in the gender, race, informality and
urban-rural wage gaps, conditional on human capital and
institutional variables, also contributed to the decline.
Although rising minimum wages were equalizing during
2003-2012, they had the opposite effects during 1995-2003,
because of declining compliance. Over the entire period, the
direct effect of minimum wages on inequality was muted. |
|---|