Racial Discrimination in the Brazilian Labour Market: Wage, Employment and Segregation Effects

Abstract

The social science literature has done much to document pervasive racial discrimination in Brazil and there is little doubt that a very dark colour is a handicap to social advancement. Nevertheless, very few empirical economic studies have attempted to quantify the impact of ethnic discrimination in Brazil. Using data culled from the Pesquisa National por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD), this paper fills this void by analysing ethnic wage and employment gaps, as well as occupational segregation in Brazil, using the Oaxaca decomposition methodology.