Discriminação e Segmentação no Mercado de Trabalho e Desigualdade de Renda no Brasil

In this paper we avaluate the contribution of two different forms of discrimination (by gender and color) and three different types of segmentation (spacial, sectorial and between the formal and informal segments) in the labor market, regarding the reduction of the inequality degree in the labor remuneration and in per capita income. With the exeption of the segmentation between the formal and informal segments, all the other forms of discrimination and segmentation declined during the the decade and, in particular, during the last quarth. This reduction in the labor market?s imperfections, with it?s growing integration, had a fundamental part to explain the inequality drop of labor remuneration and per capita income. The drops in the geographic segmentation level (in particular, the segmentation between capitals and small cities) and sectorial were the most contributive factors for this recent inequality reduction. In fact, the reduction in the geographic segmentation degree contributed to explain 11% to 22% of the recent drop in the per capita income and labor remuneration?s inequality degree, respectively. The reduction in the segmentation level between sectors contributed to explain 10% to 18% of this recent drop in the per capita income and labor remuneration?s inequality degree, respectively. Together, the reductions in the discrimination and segmentation levels were responsible for 35% of the inequality drop regarding the labor remuneration, being the discrimination reduction responsible for about 10% and the segmentation reduction for about 25%. Regarding the drop in the per capita income?s inequality, the reductions in the discrimination and segmentation?s degree were responsible, together, for 18%, being the discrimination responsible for 4% and the segmentation for the other 14%. At last, we see that, regarding the reduction in the discrimination and segmentation levels, a lot of them still remains extremely high, such as the gender differencials and the formal-informal segmentation degree. In both cases, the difference between workers with identical characteristics in similar jobs is above 40%.