Household Income Inequality and Education in Marriage Market in Brazil: an empirical study

This paper aims to analyze the effects of changes in returns to education, educational composition and educational assortative mating in Brazilian household income inequality covering the period from 1992 to 2014. There is an... [ view full abstract ]

This paper aims to analyze the effects of changes in returns to education, educational composition and educational assortative mating in Brazilian household income inequality covering the period from 1992 to 2014. There is an evidence that the educational assortative mating in Brazil has decreased in the last 20 years whereas there was an increase in assortative mating in Brazil between higher educated couples. In addition, our results suggest that changes in marital sorting parameters had little effect on household income inequality whereas returns to education have played a major role. This effect can be explained by the fall in returns to education from 1992 to nowadays. Finally, if marriages were formed randomly across time the counterfactual Gini would be lower than the actual one from 1992 to 2014. All results are statistically significant.