Evolution of female employment in the Brazilian labor market

Abstract

In the last 15 years, Brazil has considerably reduced the employment gap between men and women: while formal male employment increased by 46% between 2003 and 2018, female employment grew by 74%, showing greater participation of women in the labor market. This trend is also shared in the Latin American region. Part of this can be explained by sectoral segregation (segregation hypothesis), specifically an exit of women from jobs in the agricultural and industrial sectors and an increase in female employment in services. The objective of this article is to decompose the sources of variation in female employment in Brazil during 2003 to 2018. The analysis is based on the shift-share method, which makes is possible to measure, by the decomposition of employment growth, the aggregate, sectoral, and gender contribution. The calculations are presented for three sub periods: 2003-2011, 2011-2014, and 2014-2018, which correspond to different dynamic phases of the Brazilian labor market. The results show that the components that most boosted female employment were the aggregate, followed by gender.

Keywords
Women employment; Shift-share; Brazil