Assessing earnings inequalities by gender and race in the cultural sector in Brazil

This study aimed to investigate gender and racial disparities in earnings in Brazil's cultural sector. Using microdata from 2019 and 2020, earnings equations were estimated, and the Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux decomposition method was applied by quantile, considering two definitions of the cultural sector: broad and narrow, the latter excluding manufacturing and commercial activities. The findings highlight the presence of gender and racial inequalities, with racial disparities being more significant. In the broad cultural sector, both white and black women have higher average education levels than men but tend to work in lower-paying occupations. The explained effect, largely driven by the lower education levels of black workers, plays a crucial role in determining the earnings gap from a racial perspective. When focusing on culture-related activities, women possess more favourable characteristics for higher pay compared to men, except for the unexplained effect. Without this effect, women would earn more than men across all quantiles. White women in the narrower cultural sector appear to have broken the glass ceiling, but a sticky floor effect is observed for them. However, black women have yet to overcome the glass ceiling barriers in the cultural sector.