EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE, AND GENDER: EVIDENCE ON THE DETERMINANTS OF EARNINGS IN THE BRAZILIAN FORMAL LABOR MARKET

This article estimates the determinants of earnings and the gender wage gap in Brazil’s formal labor market, combining insights from human capital theory and feminist economics. Using 2022 microdata from the Relação Anual de Informações Sociais (RAIS), we estimate a semilog Mincer wage equation with controls for schooling, tenure, age, gender, and region. A stratified sample of 100,000 formal employment records was drawn to preserve geographic representativeness, and educational levels were standardized. Quadratic terms for age and tenure capture diminishing returns, and a progressive modeling strategy assessed individual and joint effects. Inference relies on heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. Results indicate a persistent wage penalty for women, with hourly earnings about 20 percent lower than those of men with similar profiles after controls. Higher education is associated with higher pay, although a negative differential appears for master’s degree holders, suggesting institutional specificities. Regional disparities are notable, with lower wages in the North and Northeast. Overall, the evidence points to entrenched gender and regional inequalities not fully explained by productivity, reinforcing the need for policies that promote gender equity and the valuation of human capital across Brazil.