Foreign Capital and Gender Differences in Promotions: Evidence from Large Brazilian Manufacturing Firms

• Published in: Economía (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 55 - 84
• Main Authors: COELHO, DANILO, FERNANDES, MARCELO, FOGUEL, MIGUEL N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS 01.04.2014; Brookings Institution Press; The Brookings Institution
• Subjects: Careers; Censorship; Censuses; Datasets; Employee promotions; Employment; Employment discrimination; Female employees; Gender differences; Gender equity; International trade; Labor market; Male employees; Manufacturers; Manufacturing; Men; Regression coefficients; Standard error; Studies; Wages & salaries; Women; Workers; Zero; Brazil
• ISSN: 1529-7470; 1533-6239; 1533-6239
• DOI: 10.1353/eco.2014.a544789

Widespread consensus asserts that occupational segmentation is the chief determinant for gender differences in wages in the Brazilian labor market. Although women represent 39% of the formal workforce in Brazil, they amount to only 23% of the employees in the sectors that pay relatively higher wages in 2004. This paper contributes to the literature by examining data from the largest firms of the Brazilian manufacturing industry. In particular, the goal is to determine whether obstacles to women's ascension exist by tracking the amount of time it takes for a woman to get a promotion to a managerial position. The aim is to complement the literature on gender differences in promotions, whose papers mainly focus on computing the promotion rates. Time to promotion offers a different angle in that samples with a large time span could well present similar likelihoods of promotion for both genders even if the promotion durations are different.