Inequality of Labor Wages in the Short and Long Run: Age, Period and Cohort Trends

This article seeks to understand whether the shifts of income inequality in the last decades in Brazil are the result of conjuncture or long-term factors. It analyzes the distribution of income for men and women separately. The main approaches to age, period and cohort are presented and six different test models are derived from them. The main findings are: 1) among men, the decline of inequality is mainly the result of a long-term process that coincides with the educational homogenization of cohorts – the effects of economic conjunctures and political measures only mitigate the consequences of the crises and instability of the 1980s; 2) among women, the decline of the indicators is mostly due to the effects of period. It was also noted that conjuncture-related aspects affect the distribution of income of men and women differently.

income inequality; age; period; cohort; long term