Gênero e mercado de trabalho no Brasil

Abstract

The last decades were marked by profound transformations of the role of women in the economy, in the family and in society. Despite the many achievements of women, issues associated with women's participation in the labor market are still in constant debate. Therefore, the main objective of the thesis is to contribute to a diagnosis about the situation of women in the Brazilian labor market. In order to understand the role of women in the labor market, this study addresses in Chapter 2, “Gender and the Labor Market in Brazil”, the numerous issues that can be studied, related to the insertion of women into the labor market, namely: trends observed - rate of participation and access to opportunities - in the labor market by gender, challenges faced by the Brazilian economy; and a reflection on the theoretical approaches, showing the new literature on the “Glass Ceiling”, of the perfect competition ala Becker (1971) and monopsonistic in the labor market developed by Manning (2003). Chapters 3 and 4, in its turn, contribute with original theoretical ideas, often assuming microeconometric techniques applied to panel data, based on the compatibilization of the microdata of RAIS Vínculo (Relação Anual de Informações Sociais) from the Ministério do Trabalho e Emprego (MTE) with those of the Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB) of the Ministério da Fazenda (MF), in Chapter 3 and the PIA-Empresa (Pesquisa Industrial Anual) of the microdata of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) with those of the RAIS of MTE, in Chapter 4. Chapter 3 examines the effects of maternity leave on companies by examining the Empresa Cidadã Program that extended the duration of the 120-day 180-day leave on hiring and salaries of workers in Brazil. The method of differences in differences and study of events was used in the period from 2006 to 2013. The results showed that the Empresa Cidadã Program had a positive impact on net hirings restricted to women and of a stronger magnitude for those of childbearing age, at the same time as there was no effect on workers' wages. In addition, companies were already taking a more defensive stance towards hiring women in the pre-program period. Chapter 4 seeks to investigate the empirical implications of Becker’s theory of discrimination against women by the employer. A longitudinal panel of eleven years (2002 to 2013) was used, using the Fixed Effects model. This test allows us to test two theoretical predictions of Becker’s model (1971): i) companies that make less relative use of women earn lower profits; ii) these companies will have a greater chance of leaving the market. The results indicated that, in the short term, a greater share of relative employment of women affects the profit of the companies, especially for the companies with high competitive power in the market. On the other hand, in the medium to long term, the second theoretical prediction was not compatible with the data collected, since the smaller magnitude of the performance measures of the companies associated to a smaller proportion of employed women did not affect the probability of survival of the companies.