Occupational gender segregation in the brazilian labor market: A decomposition analysis for the period 2004-2015

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution of occupational gender segregation in the Brazilian labor market from 2004 to 2015. Segregation is measured with traditional indicators, such as the dissimilarity and Gini indices, and also using the set of additively decomposable measures proposed by Hutchens (2004), which allows to separate segregation into two parts: one referring to segregation between large occupational groups (1-digit occupational classification), and the other one corresponding to a weighted sum of segregation levels within these groups. Our findings indicate that segregation increased between 2004 and 2015, reversing the downward trend reported in the literature for the period before 2004. The decomposition analysis indicates that this increase has been mainly driven by segregation among broadly defined occupational groups, i.e., across groups entailing very different tasks. We conclude that, as the female labor force participation rate stabilizes, the integration of occupations according to sex may have reached its limit.