FEMALE WAGE DISCRIMINATION AND IT WAGE PREMIUM IN THE SOUTHERN BRAZILIAN TECHNOLOGY CLUSTERS

Abstract

In this paper we provide an analysis of the wage, productivity and gender profile of the labor force in the manufacturing and information-communication industries, located at the technology clusters in the southern Brazilian states. A methodology based on the economics of discrimination and Oaxaca decomposition is applied to data drawn from RAIS (a statistic office of the Brazilian Labor Office) for the year 2011. The results of the econometric analysis point out the existence of female wage discrimination, being the Rio Grande do Sul the state where women have the highest wage disadvantage, while Paraná state show the lowest female disadvantage. Furthermore, in separating the IT analyst workers from a broader group of occupations, we find that the IT workers command a higher average wage, illustrating a career wage advantage. Moreover, despite being underrepresented in the field, as they account for only 22% of the IT workers, women are able to attain an occupation wage advantage greater than their male counterparts. As a result, the degree of female discrimination is downplayed in the IT careers. These results are in line with empirical findings for the OECD countries and are pioneer for Brazilian data.