Rising human capital but constant inequality: The education composition effect in Brazil

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the education composition of the workforce and of the changing returns to schooling on the dispersion of male labor earnings in Brazil in the last twenty years. It applies a quantile regression approach to a polynomial on age, time and interactions, using repeated cross-sections of a large Brazilian annual household survey. Counterfactual results indicate that the rise in the schooling level of the Brazilian labor force failed to bring inequality down because the changes in education composition reinforced inequality. Simulations suggest that the education composition of the workforce will contribute to a substantial downward trend in overall inequality in the near future.