Labor Market of Knowledge Workers: Innovation and Inequality in Brazil

The general goal of this study is to know the relation between current forms of capitalism called “informational” (Castell, 1999) or “reflexive” (Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Giddens, 1990), and the role education and qualification in this society in the form of “cultural and social capital” (Coleman, 1988; Bourdieu, 1981), “embeddedness” in the innovation enterprises (Granovetter, 2001) or in terms of influence of human capital in the stratification of occupations (Goldthorpe, 2008; Becker, 1968). The main focus is the position of highly educated workers in the Brazilian labor market in recent years comparing their positions in the public and private sector, and in innovating enterprises to identify the possible motivation of choice, in relation to income, autonomy and insurance benefits. The group studied is professionals with Master's and Doctorate degrees, people working in Research and Development (R&D). This study shows the position of these workers compared with people of the same level of education but with different characteristics of occupation, age, gender and race to see how discrimination contributes to income inequality in Brazil.

It also compares the characteristics of high level of education workers with the less educated to observe the contribution of education and qualification in the variation of income inequality during the last decade.

The testing hypotheses are:

The kind of relationship between knowledge workers and innovating enterprises could be weak in Brazil compared with the more technologically developed countries because these workers have little motivation in terms of income, stability and career progress.

The knowledge workers could prefer to work in the public sector in Brazil because the income is good and they have more stability and maybe more autonomy in the elaboration of projects than in the private sector.

The innovating entrepreneurs prefer to contract less educated workers, looking for less cost and more immediate economic benefits and do not invest in R&D.

The State in Brazil generates an attractive labor market for the most educated  in terms of income and working conditions and contributes significantly to segmentation and income inequality in the labor market. Even in the private labor market there could be very deep income inequality produced by education and also discrimination by gender and race.

Finally, the places occupied by highly educated people in the labor market and the levels of income inequality in Brazil can show the country's international position in Science and Technology, and Research and Development (R&D).

To demonstrate these hypotheses we use mainly descriptive and inductive quantitative methods like percentages, averages, regression and logistic statistic models. 

The sources of data are the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) database, International Labor Organization data, World Bank data, PNAD (household survey, Brazil), PINTEC (innovation survey, Brazil).