The female headship in Brazilian public administration

Abstract

A ban to sex discrimination in public employment was in the agenda of teachers and wives of public employees who founded the Female Republican Party as far back as 1910.

It's clear that the public sector as an employer has a relatively great importance for women than for men, and that this relative difference has increased throughout the years. This is probably due to a conjunction of four mutually reinforcing factors: the provision by the State of services traditionally provided by women; the growing deterioration of civil servant's salaries; the less demanding nature of public jobs; less discriminatory hiring practices adopted by the State.

Field studies of women in public administrative are rare in Brazil. However, a very interesting exception was done in 1978 by Santos who interviewed 63 professional women working in four states companies. These women held very privileged positions. Most of these women used individualistic methods to overcome the barriers. Santos founded two main barriers for career advancement for women. First, most of the women she interviewed had functions of administrative support. Second, women are seldom raised to management positions.