Desemprego e qualificação: uma análise dos efeitos idade, período e coorte

Abstract

There is some evidence that the unemployment rate of more skilled workers decreased relative to less skilled workers recently in Brazil. The goal of this paper is to analyze the unemployment rate pattern by skill across cohorts of birth. The empirical analysis is based on decompositions of the skilled workers relative unemployment rate into age period, and cohort effects, using Deaton and Paxson (1994) methodology. The data set is the Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios – the Brazilian national household survey – from 1981 to 1999. The results show that the gap in the unemployment rate by skill level varied significantly by birth cohort. The unemployment rate of skilled workers decreased relative to less skilled workers for younger generations, but this did not happen for older cohorts.