Beyond Overall Income Inequality: Racial Income Gaps and Health Disparities

Abstract

In this paper, we combine Census data with death records to examine the relationship between income inequality and race-specific mortality across 5,565 municipalities in Brazil. We find that overall income inequality is strongly associated with Non-White mortality but not with White mortality. To understand this disparity, we decompose the Gini coefficient and find that the racial income gap accounts for 14% of overall income inequality. Using an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we show that 79% of the racial income gap is explained by differences in education between Whites and Non-Whites. Finally, we document that the residual (structural) component of the racial income gap is strongly associated with Non-White male mortality, particularly homicides at young ages. Our results imply that closing schooling gaps alone will not eliminate racial health disparities in Brazil.