Gender disparities, career choices, and wage dynamics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations in Brazil

 

While science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are crucial to fostering human capital and innovation, women remain underrepresented in these fields, even though their involvement is essential to a country's productivity. This project was proposed to advance the understanding of gender differences in STEM fields in Brazil. It makes a novel contribution to understanding the causes and consequences of gender gaps by analyzing national longitudinal data on firms and employees in research institutions, government-owned enterprises, and private enterprises. It also fills a gap by providing a better understanding of what STEM is in Brazil.

This paper estimates the life-cycle wage premiums of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) college graduates and STEM workers occupations in Brazil. Using data from the 2010 Brazilian Demographic Census, we find there is 12.2% premium associated to majoring in STEM fields. This premium is lower than the premium of traditional fields such as Medicine and Law as well as the premium associated with STEM degrees observed in developed economies such as Canada and the US. We provide evidence that this is not connected to the premium to working in STEM occupations but rather to a poor transition from college to jobs in STEM occupations. Breaking the analysis by gender, we find the premium associated to majoring in STEM fields is similar for women and men. However, women are less likely to survive in STEM throughout the life cycle.

This paper documents the dynamics of the gender gap over time and over the life cycle in STEM occupations in Brazil. Using a matched employer-employee data on the Brazilian formal labor market and a novel classification of occupations, we compare the STEM and non-STEM gender gaps in the formal labor market. We establish four results. First, we document that, while the ratio of women to men among workers is stable in the formal labor market as a whole, it increases in STEM. This is consistent with an increase in the intensive margin of labor supply of women in STEM occupations. Second, we find that the likelihood of STEM workers continuing employed in the formal sector in the following years is higher than the likelihood of the typical formal worker. Nevertheless, the likelihood of holding a STEM job is smaller, in particular for women. Third, we estimate that that occupational controls and firms’ characteristics explain each around 35% of the gender pay gap in STEM occupations, more than in the rest of the formal labor market. Fourth, we show that the gender pay gap in STEM is decreasing over generations, a pattern similar to the one found in the rest of the formal labor market.

Using administrative data, we study the impact of paid maternity leave on labor market consequences for women working in STEM occupations. In Brazil, since the 1988 Constitution, every woman in the formal labor market has been eligible to receive paid maternity leave - full income replacement for 120 days after the child’s arrival. We conduct an event study in a panel of STEM women to estimate the penalties associated with childbirth. Women’s employment and earnings drop between 25% and 29% twelve months after the arrival of a child. These penalties are smaller compared to the results found for the formal labor market in previous studies. Alternatively, we also find that STEM women face a higher likelihood of working in a non-STEM occupation after childbirth, in spite of being employed: 4% of women switch to non-STEM occupations after the leave.