Employment discrimination and labor market protections for sexual minorities in Brazil

Abstract

This study estimates the impacts of an employment non-discrimination act (ENDA) for sexual minorities in Brazil. We contribute new evidence on ENDA impacts for sexual minorities in a distinct context from the current literature. Additionally, this is one of few studies to document labor market gaps by sexual orientation in Latin America. In this paper, we first present evidence of labor market gaps in employment, formal sector employment, hours worked, income and hourly earnings for lesbian and gay individuals in Brazil. For the same groups, we then estimate the impact of Brazilian legislation forbidding employment discrimination based on sexual orientation on these same labor market outcomes. Regarding initial pre-policy labor market gaps, conditioning on individual and work-related controls, we see that lesbian women experience wage premiums compared to straight women, while gay men experience wage penalties compared to straight men. We then estimate robust evidence that the implementation of employment protections increased income for gay men. For lesbian women, we estimate evidence of post-policy reductions in employment, but higher income and hourly earnings for those still working. Focusing on a Latin American country, we find many impacts consistent with the more recent existing evidence on ENDAs for sexual minorities.