Changes in the women’s labor market and education and their impacts on marriage and inequality: evidence from Brazil

Sergio Firpo and Lorena Hakak ()
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Lorena Hakak: FEA - Sao Paulo University

Empirical Economics, 2022, vol. 62, issue 4, No 14, 1909-1950

Abstract: Abstract From 1992 to 2014, Brazil experienced a decline in income inequality along with a significant increase in schooling level, though the latter was more pronounced among women. Brazil also experienced a decline in returns to education, whereas an opposite trend was observed in several developed countries and China. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of educational, marital, and labor market factors on the income inequality of married couples. We also analyze how changes in educational assortative mating affect their income. Our findings suggest that changes in educational marital sorting parameters had a small but statistically significant effect on household income inequality. We show that growth in female labor force participation and a decrease in the gender wage gap explain part of the decline of the Gini coefficient. Educational factors also explain a part of that decline. Nevertheless, the main driver of the reduction in income inequality among couples appears to be the overall decrease in the returns to education.

Keywords: Household income inequality; Assortative mating; Marriage market; Returns to schooling; Labor market; Family economics; J12; J16; D31; I24; I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-021-02076-6

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