Uma análise das desigualdades socioeconômicas e de gênero no Brasil: o papel do background familiar na transmissão intergeracional dos recursos: das mães e dos pais para os filhos e filhas

Abstract

For a long time, intergenerational mobility studies have focused primarily on men. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, studies on social stratification started to include information about women in their empirical analyses. Nonetheless, most studies still rely solely on the father’s resources to measure the effects of family background in children’s achievements. Using a large national transversal data set, this work seeks to analyze the association between parental resources and children’s occupational status and earnings in their adulthood in Brazil. Specifically, I compare the maternal and paternal influences as well as the effects of the participation of the mother in the labor market, as compared to housewife mothers. I update the findings of maternal influence on intergenerational transmission of dis/advantages from a gender perspective. The first result was that both parents’ backgrounds influence their sons and daughters’ achievements substantially. Moreover, the mother’s level of instruction is as relevant as the father’s education. I also found that maternal occupational status has a stronger effect than income on their children’s future occupational status. Another finding was that, the mother’s participation in the labor market has a negative average impact on the occupation status of her children. Upon further investigation, I observed that the effect is negative when mothers present low occupational status, whereas mothers with prestigious positions tend to have a positive impact on their children’s outcome. These results reveal that the Brazilian social stratification system still presents a rigid barrier in reducing income and social inequalities across generations.