The Growing Women's Labor Market Participation and the Persistence of Inequality Between and Among Gender in Brazil

The last decades of development in Brazil have fostered a significant increase in women’s participation in paid work in both the formal and informal sectors. Looking into the significance of women’s growing labor force presence, this paper raises a number of questions to investigate to what extent women’s paid labor impacts inequality between gender (men and women) and among gender (among women on the basis of class). We address that main issue by looking into the connections between women’s paid labor and unpaid labor and two main factors  - the sexual division of labor in the family, and the labor legislation and social policies concerning maternity leave and child care.  Analyzing data from the 2012 national survey data (PNAD) from the Brazilian Census Bureau, we show that women’s transition to paid labor in Brazil has been taking place without a) significant changes in unpaid labor related to the persistence of the traditional  sexual division of work in the family, and b) adequate policies geared to socializing responsibility for child care. We argue that a more equitable division of domestic work and children rearing in the family, as well as more inclusive social policies on parental leave and child care provisions are crucial to improve the balance between work and family (benefitting not women only, but men and children as well), and to foster equality between and among gender in the labor market and in the public sphere.