This article examines, from a gender perspective, the type of employability the population holding higher education degrees had over the last thirty years of the twentieth century. To achieve its goals, it first outlines the broader changes witnessed in the work market in this period based on a dialogue with the literature of reference. Then, based on the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics' database of census figures of 1970 and 2000, it compares different patterns and trends of some variables regarding the labor market among men and women. This approach discusses the extent to which the dynamics seen in this segment also play out a gender division of labor. The main results show that already in the 1970s most women in this group worked full time. This trend accentuated in the thirty years in question, and in the other variables trends increasingly closer to those seen among men were also noticeable. However, the persistence of female occupational segmentation and the major wage differentials still point to a gradual deconstruction of the constraints surrounding the presence of these women in the workplace.
gender relations; labor market; women with higher education degrees
