Migration of labor: differential of income between rural and urban trade union workers in Brazil

Purpose - The objective of this work was to analyze the income differential of the rural–urban worker in relation to the rural–rural worker and in relation to the urban–urban worker in the Brazilian labor market. Two databases were used, the 2005 and 2015 PNADs (Pesquisa Nacional Por Amostra de Domicílios). Design/methodology/approach - The methodology is the decomposition approach proposed by Firpoet al.(2007, 2009). This method adopts estimates of unconditional quantile regressions, based on the concepts of influence function and recentered influence function (RIF). Findings - Among the main results, income differentials were shown to benefit the urban–urban worker when compared to the rural–urban worker, and income differences to the benefit of the rural–urban workers, when these were compared to the rural–rural workers. The educational variable was relevant in explaining the income disparity and expressing increasing effects in the higher quantiles. Originality/value - The methodology used in this work is considered recent in the literature as it is based on the RIF regression (Firpoet al., 2007, 2009). The main advantage of this method is the possibility of assigning a “composition effect” and a “wage structure effect” for each variable that determines the level of income at different points of the income distribution.