Padrões Espacial e Setorial da Evolução da Informalidade no Brasil - 1991 -2003

The aim of this paper is to investigate the evolution of informality in the Brazilianlabor market after the economic opening process, emphasizing spatial and sectorpatterns. The data from PNAD allows one to identify a clear dichotomy betweenmetropolitan regions, where informality increased substantially, and the nonmetropolitanareas, where it went down. In the aggregate, the levels are quite similarfor the initial and final years, with low variations along the period. One importantconsequence of this stability is that, against the widespread feeling, the percentage ofsocial security contributors did not decrease. Another interesting finding is that thesector reallocation, with the migration of a series of activities from the industrial tothe service sector, opposed to what is usually believed, did not play a crucial role inexplaining the rise in metropolitan degree of informality. In fact, the remarkableincrease of informality within the industrial sector points to a dissemination of a?culture of informality? in the metropolitan areas, which would be the main factor tounderstand such upswing. Symptomatically, the industrial sector did not display thesame behavior in the non-metropolitan areas, where there was even a decrease in theincidence of informal practices, which illustrates well the spatial differences in theevolution patterns.