ABSTRACT Using data from an annual household survey (PNAD), this study analyses the behavior of the wage gap between public and private formal workers from the tertiary sector in Brazil from 1992 to 2005. Earnings equations are estimated separately for these two groups. Such equations allow us to evaluate the effect of age, gender, schooling, color (race), position in the occupation, weekly working time and other factors on earnings of each category. Blinder-Oaxaca methodology reveals how much of the wage gap between the workers of both sectors is due to differences in productive endowments and how much is due to other factors, such as the existence of segmentation between the public and the private labor market in Brazil. An important result is the increase of the wage gap between the two groups of workers, mainly of the part that can not be explained by workers' productive endowments.
Wage differentials; Income inequality; Public sector; Labor markets
