Comparative analysis of occupational mobility between foreign men and women in Brazil’s formal labour market

Análise comparativa da mobilidade ocupacional entre homens e mulheres estrangeiros no mercado de trabalho formal brasileiro

Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 3.0 Internacional.

Pioneering studies of the occupational mobility of foreigners in a host society, analysing just men, identified a U-curve: an initial decline from the socio-occupational status of the last job in the country of origin to the first job in the destination country, followed by a period of upward career mobility following assimilation and the accumulation of human capital after numerous years living in the new country (CHISWICK 1977, 1978, CHISWICK & PAUL 2005).

However, Portes and Manning (2008) argue that the accumulation of human capital through the immigrant’s^[1]assimilation is insufficient to explain the mode of integration of foreigners in the destination country, but there are diverse factors that influence this process, classifiable into three types: 1) individual (sex, language proficiency. age, period since arrival, place of birth, and educational level, for example); 2) family (social and economic capital); 3) contextual (government policy, prejudices existing in the host society, among others).

Furthermore, some studies call attention to a polarization in the occupational structure of immigrants in the host labour market, emphasizingthat a consideration of both the origin and the destination countries of immigrants is fundamental to our understanding of this polarization (SUZIKI 2019, VIRGÍLIO 2019, ADSERÀ& FERRER 2016, ADSERÀ, FERRER & HERRANZ 2020, MAGUID & BUNO 2010).

Respondingto the observed increase in the migratory flows of women and their growing participation in the labour market, there has been anupsurge in studies analysing the processes through which foreign women are integrated into the economically active population, along with their socio-occupational mobility in the host society (POWERS, SELTZER & SHI 1998, AYSA-LASTRA & CACHÓN-RODRIGUEZ 2013A, 2013B, SÁNCHEZ-SOTO & SINGELMANN 2017, ADSERÀ & FERRER 2016, ADSERÀ, FERRER & HERRANZ 2020).

In this context, studies have emerged that question the applicability of the U-curve to women’s experiences, identifying other patterns of insertion (AYSA-LASTRA & CACHÓN-RODRIGUEZ 2013B, VIDAL-COSO & MIRET-GAMUNDI 2014, SÁNCHEZ-SOTO & SINGELMANN, 2017). A study undertaken in Spain by Fernández-Mácias et al. (2015) identifies upward mobility among foreign men and downward mobility among foreign women, or the withdrawal of the latter from the labour market. Also in Spain, Aysa Lastra and Chachón-Rodriguez (2013b) identify an L-pattern for immigrant women with an initial drop in occupational status during the first phase and stagnation (immobility) in the second phase of transition in the labour market.

However, there are studies in countries of the Global North and South^[2]showing that foreign women experience an upward mobility (ADSERÀ& CHISWICK 2007, ADSERÀ & FERRER 2016, ADSERÀ, FERRER & HERRANZ 2020, MAGUID & BRUNO 2010). According to these studies, the country of origin, as well as the country of destination, are fundamental to comprehending the different forms of insertion, occupational mobility and salary progressionof immigrants. However, research shows that, compared to their male counterparts, women tend to have fewer chances of upward mobility (MAGUID & BRUNO 2010, BRUNO 2007).

Specifically in the case of Brazil, Suziki (2019) argues that there are national groups of immigrants who accumulate more disadvantages than others in terms of the probability of acquiring better jobs over time. Foreigners originating from the Global South encounter larger barriers to occupational mobility in the Brazilian labour market than those coming from the Global North. However, the author does not compare the occupational trajectory of men and women. Another point to emphasize is that studies of the occupational mobility of foreigners in Brazil arequite scarce in general.

To add to this debate, in this article we intend to answer the following questions: do foreign women have different patterns of mobility compared to foreign men in Brazil’s formal labour market? Are the chances of upward mobility fewer for women compared to male immigrants? Are these differences homogeneousfor all groups of immigrants, irrespective of their country of birth?

We have utilized data from the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS) published by the Ministry of Economy from 1995 to 2015^[3], which include information on the registration number in the Social Integration Program (Programa de Integração Social: PIS) of each worker, thus enabling a longitudinal panel analysis.It should be stressed that this database refers to workers employed in the formal labour market only.

The article is divided into three sections, in addition to this introduction and the concluding remarks.The first section comprises a review of the literature, seeking to understand the factors that explain the occupational trajectory of immigrants in their host society, emphasizing the impact of the sex variable. Following this debate, we then present the hypotheses to be tested. Next, we explain the methodology used with a description of the dependent and independent variables, as well as the statistical models. In the third section we introduce our results, aiming to demonstrate whether or not the hypotheses were validated.

The first studiesof the occupational mobility of foreigners in their host society, which emerged from classic assimilation theory, showed a U-curve in the insertion of immigrants into the labour market. An initial fall in the immigrant’s occupational status was seen to occur due to issuesfaced in the destination society, such as language difficulties, or problem in recognizing university qualifications and previous work experience. However, with more time spent living in the host country, combined with theconsolidation of social networks, learning the official language of the host society, and acquisition of social^[4]and symbolic capitals,^[5] as well as the possibleobtainmentof residence and work permits, along with recognition of academic qualifications, immigrants succeed in improving their occupational status and complete the U-curve (CHISWICK & PAUL 2005, RUEF 2017).

In debate with classic assimilation theory,segmented assimilation theory emerged, premised on the idea that modern societies are diverse and segmented, meaning that the form in which immigrants become inserted into the host society depends on three kinds of conditioning factors: 1) individual variables, including factors relating to the person’s exposure tothe host society, such as the ability to speak the language, age on arrival, place of birth, educational level, and racial and gender characteristics; 2) family variables, which relate to social and economic capitals; 3) contextual variables, which concern the diversity found in the country of destination, including the different government policies, values and prejudices existing in the host society (PORTES & MANNING, 2008, EGREJA & PEIXOTO, 2011).

In general, the first studies from both these theoretical approaches analysed samples of foreign men, excluding women, due to evidence that the labour market shows distinct dynamics for men and women and due to the greater participation of men in the labour market compared to women (CHISWICK, 1977 AND 1978, CHISWICK & PAUL, 2005).

With the increase in the flows of female migrants and their increasing participation in the labour market, there has been a new wave of analyses of the processes of integrating foreign women into the economically active population, along with their socio-occupational mobility in the destination country (POWERSET AL. 1998, AYSA-LASTRA & CACHÓN-RODRIGUEZ 2013A AND 2013B, SÁNCHEZ-SOTO & SINGELMANN 2017, ADSERÀ & FERRER 2016, ADSERÀ, FERRER & HERRANZ 2020).

Inspired bysegmented assimilation theory, studies have questioned the application of the U-curve model to women’s mobility, identifying other patterns that better fit the trajectory of female immigrants in the labour market.These author suggest that immigrant women have different mobility patterns to men, concentrated in precarious jobs with little possibility of upward mobility (POWERS ET AL. 1998, AYSA-LASTRA & CACHÓN-RODRIGUEZ 2013B, VIDAL-COSO & MIRET-GAMUNDI 2014, SÁNCHEZ-SOTO & SINGELMANN, 2017). Aysa-Lastra and Cachón-Rodriguez (2013b) analyse foreign women in Spain and identify an L-shaped mobility pattern, describing an initial drop in occupational status compared to the last job in the country of origin and the first job in the destination country, followed by occupational immobility after insertion in the host labour market. The authors classify the mobility pattern of female immigrants in Spain as ‘solid patterns’ due to the high rates of stagnation in occupational status. Similarly, Fernández-Mácias et al. (2015),also in Spain, identify that foreign women have more chance of downward mobility and many of them end up leaving the labour market.

However, the studies by Adserà, Ferrer and Herranz (2020), Adseràand Ferrer (2016) and Adseràand Chiswick (2007) demonstrate that this pattern is not the same in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Sweden, where these authors show that foreign women do not remain stuck in low-skilled jobs. They experienced upward mobility, more quickly among more highly educated women.Over time,foreign women end up occupying jobs that require analytic skills and less physical effort. Furthermore, such studies demonstrate that the countries of origin and destination are fundamental to comprehending the forms of insertion, occupational mobility and salary progression of immigrants.

However, specifically in relation to the group of highly qualified women, some authors indicate that the upward mobility of these foreign women in the host labour market is even more difficult than for men (PURKAYASTHA, 2005; KOFMAN & RAGHURAM, 2006). The main obstacles to the upward trajectory of women are the many fields in the labour market still dominated by men and, consequently, the devalorisation of roles occupied by women and the domestic responsibilities traditionally attributed to them.

It is worth emphasizing that this international literature refers to research on immigrants moving from developing or developed countries to developed countries (from the South or North to the North), unlike Brazil, which, over recent decades, had taken insome foreigners migrating North-South but mainly South-South.Moreover, many of these studies also analyse the informal labour market, which is not the focus of our analysis. Few studies exist on socio-occupational mobility that compare female and male foreigners originating from South-South migration.

The studies of mobility produced by Bruno (2007), Maguid and Bruno (2010) and Virgílio (2019) comparing South American men and women migrating to Argentina or Chile demonstrate that foreign women move through more unskilled occupations than foreign men, and also that these women tend to present higher chances of downward occupational mobility than their male compatriots. However, there are differences in terms of the pattern of mobility by sex when the country of origin is considered. One example are Bolivian and Paraguayan immigrants in Buenos Aires, where Bolivian women tend to have a higher level of upward mobility than their male compatriots. This is in contrast to Paraguayan women who have much lower levels of upward mobility compared to men from their country. In the case of the latter foreign women, the level of immobility is high and the pattern of concentration in the occupational niche of domestic services is very high, even in the formal labour market, which does not happen with Bolivian women (Maguid & Bruno 2010).

Studies of occupational mobility among foreign workers in Brazil are still scarce, likewise research examining the effects of sex on the labour trajectories of immigrants (PERES, 2012; PERES & BAENINGER, 2017; VILELA, COLLARES & NORONHA, 2015; VILELA, NORONHA & CAMPOS 2019, SUZIKI, 2019). In general, these Brazilian studies analyse the insertionof foreigners in the occupational structure, but do not trackmobility over time (except Suziki 2019). On the occupational mobility of immigrant workers in Brazil, Suziki (2019) shows evidence of unequal paths. Analysing the formal labour market, the author verifies that some nationalities accumulate higher chances of mobility than others. The barriers to insertion and upward occupational mobility in the labour market are higher in the case of immigrants from the Global South than those encountered by foreigners from the Global North. The immigrant’s origin is fundamental to comprehending her or his socio-occupational position in the host society. Nonetheless, the work of Suziki (2019) cannot be extrapolated to the country as a whole given the qualitative methodology used by the author and the absence of any comparative analysis of female and male foreigners, the focus of our article here.

Seeking to complement this debate, we propose to test: i)whether immigrant women have different mobility patterns to men, caused by structural features of Brazil’s formal labour market, characterized as sexually segregated; ii) whether foreign women generally have fewer chances of upward mobility than men with similar socioeconomic characteristics; iii) whether,however, the impact of the sex variable is heterogeneous among the differentgroups of nationalities migrating to the country.

We used data from the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS) from 1995 to 2015, which characterize the individuals and companies in whichBrazil’s formal workforce are inserted. However, this database possesses some limitations that deserve highlighting: 1) it presents only information on workers employedin the formal market and by companies^[6], meaning that the article’s conclusions apply exclusively to such workers;^[7] 2) there is no information onemployers and self-employed workers; 3) the year of entry into Brazil is shown only from 2011 onwards. As a solution we selected for analysis only individuals who appear in the databases from 2011 to 2015; 4) the existence of errors inthe data arising from the fact that the reportsare administrative records that are not checked for consistency (STERNBERG, 2001); 5) there is no information on the foreigner’s earlier occupation in the country of origin. In this article, therefore, we do not analyse the potential U-curve trajectory experienced by immigrants. Instead the immigrant’s work trajectory is examined solely on the basis of the second phase of the curve, comparing the first occupation in the host country (more precisely, the first that appears in the RAIS records) with the current occupation (again more precisely, the occupation in the last year that the person appears in the database).

The first stage of the methodology relates to the transformation of the RAIS’s unit of analysis from the employment relation, as originally construed, to the individual. In so doing, we follow the steps mapped by Noronha (2018), based on the use of the registration number in the Social Integration Program (Programa de Integração Social: PIS). We then selected those workers whose trajectory in Brazil’s formal labour market appearsover at least three complete years, since this is the minimum period indicated as necessary for the immigrant to show some mobility in the local market (SÁNCHEZ-SOTO & SINGELMANN, 2017).

In addition, the analysis considers just the fourteen groups of foreigners with the highest number of observations (all those over 15,000 observations, representing a minimum of3% of the total). We adopted this strategy for two reasons: 1) to maintain a high enough number of countries for a diversified analysis, including the flows of immigrants from both the Global North and South, but not so broad that the fluidity of the text would be compromised; 2) to achieve a more parsimonious model insofar asthe origin variable will be included in the equation as a control variable.

Following these procedures, the panel of data we constructed contains 75,343 individuals over a twenty-one-year period, totalling 499,794 observations. By nationality, this total breaks down as: Portuguese (22%), Argentinean (11%), Chilean (10%), Bolivian (8%), Uruguayan (7%), Haitian (7%),Paraguayan (6%), Italian (5%), Spanish (5%), Japanese (4%), Chinese (4%), American (US) (4%), German (4%), and French (3%).

To test our hypotheses, we used the multi-levelmixed-effects linear regressionmodel. We constructed the database in longitudinal form, classified as unbalanced: in other words, information does not exist for each individual in every year, since there are numerous situations that may remove a worker from the RAIS records, such as entering the informal market, being laid off, leaving to become an entrepreneur, retirement and death.

We based our construction of the dependent variable referring to the measure of socio-occupational mobility on theInternational Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI), an index developed by Ganzeboom, De Graaf and Treiman (1992), which attributes occupation scores in order to maximize occupation as an intervening variableof income and educational level.The index ranges from 16 to 90.

To apply the ISEI to the Brazilian context, we converted the occupational codes recorded in the RAIS (in accordance with the Brazilian Classification of Occupations: CBO 2002) to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 88). After classifying all the occupations in accordance with ISCO 88, we then built the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status, as described by Noronha (2018).The measure of occupational mobility is constructed by subtracting the ISEI of the migrant worker’s first occupation recorded in the database from the ISEI ofthe last occupation (the final year in which the person appears in the database).

In terms of independent variables, the models include information relating to: a) the worker’s human capital and demographic characteristics; b)the process of assimilation in Brazil and the social and cultural differences; c) the operational sector of the companies employing the foreign workers; d) the status of the first occupation, based on the EGP classification (Carvalhaes 2015). Detailed information on these variables appears in the appendices.

Here it is worth explaining our inclusion of the predict_Formal variable as a control in the model, created in order to correct selection bias in the sample. This bias derives from the fact that the RAIS includes only workers from the formal job market. However, a large number of immigrants are known to be employed in informal jobs in Brazil. To correct this bias, the predict_Formal variable was estimated, which refers to the probability of a worker being employed in the formal market rather than the informal. To create this variable, data from the 2010 Demographic Census relating to individuals in the informal sector was added to each year of the RAIS, and a logistic regression was applied to the data. This logistic regression included the following independent variables: age, sex, schooling, foreign or Brazilian, disabled, and region of the country in which the person is resident. This regression generated a score for the likelihood of the worker being employed in the formal sector, based on the observed variables.

In relation to the statistical models used in the analyses, we initially estimate a model including all the foreign workers.^[8]Next, we estimate specific models for each group of foreigners. This process generatedfifteen equations.

The results found in this study arefairly significant. They dialogue with the international literature, which affirms that: i) immigrant women, in general, are employed in worse jobs than men; ii)they either tend to present fewer chances of upward social mobility in the labour market of the host society compared to men; iii) or their chances of upward social mobility are null – that is, they do not present chances of mobility in a U-curve pattern but in an L-shape.

We stress that, in the case of our study, it was not possible to measureU-curve upward mobility, as diverse studies have done. This is because our source of data contains no information on the occupation of immigrants in the country of origin. For this reason, we examine the possibility of a J-shaped mobility among international male and female immigrants. In other words, comparing the person’s occupation on entry into the Brazilian labour market and the most recentoccupation, we have sought to encounter indicators of upward mobility with an emphasis on gender. The aim is to ascertain whether: i) sex is a variable that influences the trajectory of (im)mobility of the person under study; ii) women are at a disadvantage with regard to the chances of upward occupational mobility; and iii) the chances of social mobility among men and women differ when we consider the nationality of immigrants.

Another point to highlight is that our data has limitations, the most significant being the fact that we analysed only those immigrants employed in Brazil’s formal labour market by companies, thus excluding those working for individuals. Our results, therefore, may be quite different from those encountered in previous studies that coverthe labour market as a whole (formal and informal, thus excluding female domestic workers for individuals, an occupation held by many foreign women). Furthermore, the database does not contain any information on employers and self-employed workers, positions occupied by many international immigrants. This fact can generate an underestimation of the upward mobility (in the case of employers) and the upward and downward mobility (in the case of the self-employed) of those individuals being studied.

In the analysed data, in general, we did not observe, as indicated by some earlier studies, a concentration of foreign women in low status occupations in the care sector, except among Haitians, or a concentration of men in unskilled industrial jobs. We did find that the majority of foreign women are employed in Brazil’s formal market in non-manual routine occupations, considering the period of assimilation into the host society. One probable explanation for this finding resides in the differences between migrations from poor to rich countries and from rich to poor countries. It was not expected, of course, that foreign women arriving from rich countries, like Germans, French and Americans, would become employed in more low-qualified occupations in Brazil (like the care sector). However, the same was not expected in the case of female immigrants from poor countries, like Bolivian, Paraguayan and Peruvian women, among others, which is what we found. These results differ, therefore, from those encountered by Bruno (2007) and Maguid and Bruno (2010) with regard to Paraguayan and Peruvian women in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. Hence, the issue of migration from the Global North or South may not be a good explanation.

Two other possible explanations for this result seem more pertinent, therefore: i) we analysed documented women employed in the formal market, who may perhaps be positively selected in relation to human capital and other characteristics valorised on the labour market, unlike foreign women working in the informal market; ii) Brazil has a labour pool in the service sector generated by internal migration, where foreign women, due to the competition, are unable to become inserted and end up escaping the more precarious services. These are questions that need to be analysed in future studies.

In terms of the insertion of foreign men in the formal market, we can notea concentration of workers in high-level professional posts and a tendency for an increase in male immigrants occupying skilled manual jobs.The explanations are the same as the case for women.

Men and women display a similar pattern in terms of the average evolution of the ISEI according to time recordedin the RAIS, a variable utilized as a proxy for experience in the labour market. It was also foundthat the ISEI of women remains higher than men’s over time.For both sexes, there is a tendency for the ISEI to increase on average.

For foreigners as a whole, the sex variable has an effect on comprehending the occupational trajectories of foreigners in Brazil, with men generally showing higher probabilities of upward mobility than women. In other words, the model utilized for all foreigners confirms our overall supposition that female immigrants have different mobility patterns to men with lower probability of upward mobility, as shownby the international literature. However, when we analysed the fourteen national groups separately, the difference is positive for men among a higher portion (seven groups). For the six remaining groups no statistical difference is observed.Meanwhile, for Haitians the difference is negative for men. This case should be analysed in more detail in future studies.

This evidence demonstrates that detailed analyses are needed of the situation experienced by foreigners in the Brazilian labour market. In other words, if we only undertake a descriptive analysis of the occupational situation and mobility among men and women, we do not encounter a very different situation between them.In some cases, we might even conclude that women find themselves in a better situation, since, for instance, they presenthigher values of socio-occupational status than men over time.

However, as we proceed deeperinto the analyses, controlling other important variables in order to examine the real effect of sex on occupational mobility, we identify something very interesting: the pattern found among male and female foreigners is that female immigrants do not have more chances of upward mobility than their male counterparts (except for Haitian women).

Moreover, this analysis enables us to counterthe assertion of Aysa-Lastro and Cachón (2013) of the persistence of an L-shaped model for women, reflecting consistently high levels of stagnation in jobs low on the occupational hierarchy. Our results show that although women do have a pattern of fewer chances of upward mobility than men, they do not remain stagnant in the initial occupations over time. Women present rates of upward mobility and, if we consider some groups, have similar chances as their male counterparts. And as we have seen, this is not only the case for foreign women from countries of the Global North: the same applies to women from the Global South too.

Based on these findings, new questions emerge, which we intend to analyse in future studies. For instance: what is the effect of education on the occupational trajectory of foreign workers? Do educational qualifications in Brazil have a better return on the foreigner’s upward mobility compared to those acquired in another country? And what is the effect of colour/race on the immigrant’s mobility?