The proportion of workers in part-time jobs (up to 30 hours per week) is bigger among women (28.2%) than men (14.1%). That could be related to the female predominance in care taking and household chores, to which women workers dedicated 73% hours more than men.

Either in the population set or in the labor set, women have more schooling than men, but their average income correspond to ¾ of men's. Besides, in Brazil, 62.2% of the management positions (private or public) were taken by men, whereas just 37.8%, by women, in 2016.

In terms of education, there is also great inequality among women related to their color or race: 23.5% of white women have a complete higher education, 2.3 times more than brown or black women (10.4%) that completed that same schooling level.

In the country's public life, despite the minimum quote policy (30%) between the sexes for the candidates running for elections, established by Law 12,034, in 2017, women were just 10.5% of the federal politicians on duty. This proportion (10.5%) is the lowest in South America, while the world average of women politicians is 23.6%.

In the district and state spheres, 26.4% of the civil police officers and 9.8% of the military police officers were women. Just 7.9% of the Brazilian municipalities had a specialized police station for women affairs in 2014.

The fertility rate of teenager is an indicator that has been diminishing in the country: from 2011 to 2016, the fertility rate among women aged 15 to 19 fell from 64.5 to 56.0 births in each thousand women. However, regional inequality in those indicators is big: in Acre, almost one in each 10 women in this group gave birth in 2016, whereas in the Federal District, maternity reached just four in a hundred teenagers.

These are some pieces of information of the Gender Statistics: social indicators of women in Brazil, which analyses the living conditions of the Brazilian women through a set of indicators proposed by the United Nations.

The publication and the support material of this survey can be accessed on the right of this page.

The IBGE has compiled its surveys and external sources to elaborate Gender Statistics: Social indicators of women in Brazil. Such indicators are separated in five groups: economic structure, participation in productive activities and access to resources; education; health and related services; public life and decision-making; human rights of women and the girl child.

The information derives from the IBGE surveys - National Household Sample Survey (PNAD and Continuous PNAD), Population Projection, Vital Statistics, National Survey of Health (PNS) and Survey of Basic State Information (Estadic), and also from the Ministry of Health, Presidency, National Congress, Superior Electoral Court and National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira - INEP.

Working women dedicate 73% more hours than men to domestic chores and caretaking 

In 2016, disaggregating the employed population by sex, women dedicated 18.1 hours per week to caretaking or chores - nearly 73% more than men (10.5 hours per week).

Regionally, the greatest inequality was in the Northeast, where women dedicated 19.0 hours per week to those activities, or 80% more hours than men did.

Black or brown women are those that dedicate more to caretaking and chores, with 18.6 hours per week. Among men, the indicator does not change much when color or race or region are considered.

28.2% of women and 14.1% of men work in part-time jobs

Women that need to join paid work with household chores and caretaking, in many cases, take jobs with reduced hours. The proportion of employed persons working in part-time jobs (up to 30 hours a week) shows a higher percentage of women (28.2%), when compared to men (14.1%). In the North and Northeast, the proportion of women surpasses 36%.

Black or brown women were the ones that mostly had part-time jobs, achieving 31.3% of the total, whereas 25.0% of white women were employed as such in 2016. For men, just 11.9% of whites had part-time jobs, while the proportion for blacks and browns was 16.0%.

Women still earn less than men

In relation to average earnings, women continue to earn, on average, nearly ¾ of what men do. In 2016, while men's monthly average earnings were R$2,306, women's, were R$1,764.

Even when considering the average earnings by worked hours, women get less than men (86.7%), which could be related to the occupational segregation to which women might be subject in the labor market. The difference between earnings is greater in the category complete higher degree, in which women's earnings corresponded to 63.4% of what men earned in 2016.

Women and men had a balanced proportion of access to mobile cell phones 

As to the access and use of new technologies – an important piece of information to assess the autonomy level of women –, results indicate that the proportion of women who have cell phones in Brazil (78.2%) is slightly superior to men's (75.9%).

Such proportion is higher for women in all Major Regions, except for the South Region, where the male indicator (82.1%) is slightly above women's (81.9%).

Delay in schooling is higher among black or brown men

The educational advantage of women becomes evident on the analysis of the indicators on delay in schooling and the schooling level of adults. A way to measure delay is by means of the net adjusted attendance rate. This indicator measures the proportion of persons that attend school in the schooling level adequate to their age, including those that have finished the level, in relation to those in the same age group.

In 2016, according to the Continuous PNAD, the net adjusted school attendance rate of the secondary education of men aged 15 to 17 was 63.2%, 10.3 percentage points below the female rate (73.5%). That means that 36.8% of men in this age group had a delay in the secondary education, due to flunking or evasion.

Considering color or race, inequality in delay was significant among women: 30.7% of black or brown women aged 15 or 17 presented delay in schooling in the secondary education, whereas 19.9% of the white women in this age bracket were in the same situation. But the greatest difference (more than twice as much) was among the percentage of such delay among white women (19.9%) and black or brown men (42.7%).

Proportion of persons with complete higher degree is bigger among women

Because of this unequal school trajectory, related to gender roles and the precocious insertion of men in the labor market, women tend to achieve a higher education level than men. The biggest difference by sex is found in "Complete higher degree", especially between persons in younger age groups (25 to 44), where the percentage of men with a college degree was 15.6%, whereas that of women reached 21.5%, representing 37.9% more than men.

Again, inequality among women due to color or race is seen. The percentage of white women with complete higher education (23.5%) is 2.3 times bigger than that of black or brown women (10.4%) and it is more than the triple of that found for black or brown men (7.0%).

94.7% of women had access to prenatal care

According to the National Survey of Health (PNS) 2013, among women aged 18 to 49, 97.4% had been at least once to a prenatal appointment with a specialized health professional during their last pregnancy. Women in this age bracket that were to at least four appointments of such nature were 93.9%.

In the disaggregation by color or race, both indicators on prenatal appointments presented inequality: whereas 98.6% of white women were seen at least once by specialized health professionals in the last pregnancy, among blacks and browns, this percentage was lower: 96.6%

For four appointments at least as a parameter, the percentage is 95.4% for white women and 92.8% for black or brown women. Such inequalities become sharper regionally: in the North Region, for example, the percentage of white women that were seen at least in four appointments (98.5%) surpasses that of black and brown women (87.9%) by more than 10 percentage points.

One in every four women did not use a contraceptive method

According to PNS 2013, 72.3% of the women aged 18 to 49 married or in a stable union, sexually active and not in the menopause, used some method to prevent pregnancy, which means that more than 1/4 of the women in this group did not use any contraceptive methods. In the North (68.4%) and Northeast (71.5%), the percentages were below the national average.

Smoking is more common among men; obesity, among women

The PNS 2013 also reveals that Brazil follows the world trend of greater incidence of smoking among men and of obesity among women: 18.9% of men smoked some type of tobacco product, a percentage that was 11.0% for women. While the proportion of obese men (17.5%) was lower than that of women (25.2%).

Life expectancy of women at 60 years old was greater than that of men and increased between 2011 and 2016. In 2011, life expectancy of a woman aged 60 in Brazil was 23.1 years and increased in 2016 to 23.9. Conversely, men expectancy increased from 19.6 to 20.3 years.

Just one woman in every 10 federal representatives in 2017

In December 2017, the percentage of parliamentary women in the National Congress was 11.3%. In the Senate, 16.0% were women and in the Deputy Chamber, 10.5%. Three Brazilian states did not have any federal representatives: Paraíba, Sergipe and Mato Grosso.

In 2017, Brazil occupied the 152nd position among the 190 countries that reported to the Inter-Parliamentary Union the percentage of seats in its low chambers (Congress) or unicameral parliament taken by parliamentary women on duty.

In South America, Brazil had the worst result. In the world, women occupied on average 23.6% of the seats in the low chambers or unicameral parliaments.

Women occupied 37.8% of the management positions in 2016

In Brazil, in 2016, 62.2% of the management positions, both in the public sphere and in the private initiative, were occupied by men and 37.8%, by women. Women participation in management positions was higher among the younger generations, ranging from 43.4% among women aged 16 to 29 years, up to 31.3% among women aged 60 and above.

Women were 26.4% of the contingent of civil police officers in 2014

The percentage of women police officers is an indicator that, besides contributing to achieve the target of more women in public life, integrate the assistance measures to help women in cases of family and domestic violence.

The assistance is provided by means of civil police, which is subject to state governments. According to the Survey of Basic State Information (Estadic), in 2013, the proportion of women in the contingent of civil police in the Federation Units was 26.4%.

Considering the total amount of civil and military police, the proportion of women in the country was 13.4%; the total of women in the national contingent of military police was 9.8%. The Federation Units with the lowest participation of women in the sum of the amount of civil and military polices was Rio Grande do Norte, with 5.1%, and the one with the biggest participation was Amapá, with 23.4%.

Just 7.9% of the municipalities had specialized police stations to assist women

The existence of specialized police stations in the assistance of women does not integrate the Minimum Set of Gender Indicators elaborated by the Statistics Division in the United Nations. However, it should be noted that the Survey of Basic Municipal Information (Munic) 2014 and Estadic 2014 identified that just 7.9% of the Brazilian municipalities had that kind of police station.

According to the same IBGE surveys, in 11 of the 27 Federation Units, the theme domestic and gender violence had been approached in the program of continuing education offered to professionals last year.

In Acre, one in every 10 women aged 15 to 19 had a child in 2016

In 2016, the teenager fertility rate was 56.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. This rate has been decreasing each year, having reached 64.5 births per 1,000 women in 2011.

Among the regions, the lowest rates were in the South (45.4 per 1,000) and Southeast (45.6); at the other extreme, the North Region recorded 85.1 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. The lowest rate among Federation Units was the Federal District, 38.6. Acre had the highest fertility rate, 97.8 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19, or nearly one birth in every 10 women in this age group.