Education expansion and reduction of Brazilian regional income inequality between 1995 and 2011: recent progress and challenges

Abstract

Among the socioeconomics problems in Brazil, the personal and regional income inequality and the low educational level are notorious. Despite of the high inequality level, it has been observed a permanent fall both in the personal inequality and in the regional inequality since the final of 1990’s (Silveira Neto e Azzoni, 2012; Soares, 2006; Hoffmann, 2006; Barros et al, 2010). Besides, there was a simultaneous movement of reduction of regional inequalities of schooling among Brazilian states. The aim of this work is, thus, to decompose the regional Gini index to compute the importance of labors income related to the education, and the importance of non-labors income for the fall of inequality observed in the recent years. The results suggest that the labor income, particularly for individuals with at least secondary education, and the incomes from social programs were the responsible for the fall of inequality in the period between 1995 and 2011. On the other hand, the dynamic of distribution of income for those with a college degree among the states have been acting to avoid stronger reduction in regional inequality.