WHO CAN FIND WORK? EDUCATIONAL SELECTIVITY AND FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKFORCE OF NORTHEASTERN METROPOLITAN CITIES DURING AND BEFORE AND AFTER THE PANDEMIC
Seletividade educacional e participação feminina na força de trabalho das metrópoles nordestinas no e pré e pós-pandemia
Abstract
Women's participation in the Brazilian labor market has advanced in recent decades, although it is still marked by structural inequalities of a socioeconomic and territorial nature. This study analyzes the determinants of women's participation in the metropolitan regions of Fortaleza, Recife, and Salvador, comparing the years 2014 and 2024, using microdata from the PNAD Contínua (Continuous National Household Sample Survey). A Probit model, complemented by a decomposition technique for binary variables, is used to identify not only the factors associated with women's participation but also changes in how these factors are valued over time. The results indicate that women's participation remains strongly conditioned by human capital, life cycle, and household structure. However, the significant increase in the effects associated with schooling, especially higher education, stands out, highlighting greater educational selectivity in metropolitan labor markets in the post-pandemic period. This result suggests that, in contexts of productive restructuring and greater economic instability, women's participation becomes more dependent on formal qualifications, widening barriers for women with lower levels of education. By highlighting changes in the intensity of the determinants of female participation, the study contributes to the debate on recent transformations in the Brazilian labor market, emphasizing the regional dimension and the effects of recent shocks on the dynamics of women's labor market insertion.
