Paper short abstract:

This work will show that Brazilian dependence, marked by colonization, structural heterogeneity and asymmetry in international trade, has historically been maintained. To this end, we will show the evolution of Brazilian foreign trade and job creation, by technological intensity.

Paper long abstract:

The dependency relationship, associated with colonization, is characterized by the partial absorption of technological progress, the heterogeneity of the productive structure, the asymmetry in international trade between developed and underdeveloped countries, as well as the creation of precarious jobs.

The rise of neoliberal reforms in the late 1980s not only corroborated the decrease in employment and value added in sectors with greater technological content, but also meant reinforcing the chains of underdevelopment and dependence. The subsequent technological revolutions, such as the 4th Industrial Revolution, driven by central countries, replace the issue of dependence with the insertion of Brazil (and the periphery) in the links with the lowest value added of the Global Value Chains (GVC).

Understanding this phenomenon can benefit a lot from an analysis of the trade balance and its connection with the labor market, shedding light on the Brazilian development model and on the contemporary characteristics of dependence and subalternity.

In this sense, the objective of this work is to show how Brazilian dependence was maintained over time and gained new contours after the 1980s. To do so, we will rescue the structuralist approach of the Dependency Theory (TD) to analyze the evolution of Brazilian foreign trade and the pattern of formal job creation, both by technological intensity and between 1990 and 2022. We will use data from the Foreign Trade Secretariat (SECEX) of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and the Annual Social Information List ( RAIS) from the Ministry of Labour.