Article

^{Authors: Flávia Kelly Lima Nascimento and André Luiz Ferreira}

_{^{DOI: 10.22167/2675-6528-2025045
E&S 2026, 7: e2025045}}

Racial inequalities in the Brazilian labor market result from historical processes that structured the distribution of opportunities since the slave period. The incorporation of the Black population into the economy occurred in a subordinate manner, concentrated in manual and socially devalued activities, establishing a racial division of labor that persisted after abolition^[1]. The policy of encouraging European immigration reinforced this hierarchy by directing white workers to administrative and more prestigious roles.

In Brazilian capitalism, the labor market is organized by institutional norms permeated by the legacy of slavery^[2]. The contemporary effects of this trajectory are expressed in informality, barriers to access formal jobs, and the underrepresentation of the Black population in qualified and leadership positions^[3]. This scenario reveals the central role of structural racism in shaping productive dynamics and occupational mobility.

Institutional racism manifests itself in organizational practices, norms, and routines that regulate entry, retention, and progression at work^[4]. Even under meritocratic discourses, veiled exclusion mechanisms persist, such as racialized stereotypes and aesthetic expectations that influence candidate evaluation. In this sense, the concept of “control images”^[5] helps to understand how symbolic representations produce hierarchies and guide decisions in selection processes.

Given this, the objective of this study is to analyze how Brazilian scientific literature has addressed the intersections between race, labor market, and recruitment and selection processes, with a focus on the exclusion of the Black population.

This research is characterized by its descriptive nature and qualitative approach, aiming to understand how racism reverberates in recruitment and selection processes.

This is a systematic literature review based on Bardin’s qualitative methodology^[6], using the information systematization method to organize the general survey of scientific production on the subject, and transformation of data into categories of descriptive analyses, namely: 1. Racial division of labor in Brazil, 2. Structural and Institutional racism in the labor market, 3. Impact of racial inequalities on employability. Based on these categories, readings on race relations and the labor market in Brazil were addressed through theoretical grounding.

The searches were conducted in four databases (Portal de Periódicos CAPES, ScienceDirect, and SPELL), articles published between 2018 and 2023. Renowned in the field, with the purpose of identifying articles that describe “labor market”, “black people”, and “racism and labor market”, used as keywords, in order to understand how these factors relate in the scientific scope. These steps are detailed in Table 1, below:

^{Table 1. Synthesis of the methodological procedure}

Step	Description (based exclusively on the provided text)
Type and nature of the research	Study of descriptive character and qualitative nature
Method	Systematic literature review, conducted in three recognized databases: CAPES Periodicals Portal, ScienceDirect, and SPELL.
Methodological objective	Identify and select articles that addressed the themes “labor market”, “black people” and “racism and labor market”, examining their presence and distribution in recent scientific production.
Keywords used	“Recruitment and selection”; “Black people”; “Racism and the labor market”.
Search time period	Articles published between 2018 and 2023.
Language	Articles written in Portuguese.
Inclusion criteria	(i) Articles using the defined descriptors; (ii) publications between 2018–2023; (iii) full texts; (iv) peer-reviewed articles; (v) articles related to the research topic.
Exclusion criteria	(i) Duplicate articles in databases; (ii) texts that were not related to the research objective.
Database 1: CAPES Portal	Search 1 – “Recruitment and Selection”: 25 articles → temporal filter (2018–2023) → 13 articles → “peer-reviewed” filter → 5 selected articles. Search 2 – “Black people”: 1,692 articles → “peer-reviewed” (1,203) → filter (2018–2023) → 105 articles → 5 selected. Search 3 – “Racism and labor market”: 5 articles → temporal filter → 5 articles → 4 selected.
Database 2: ScienceDirect	Advanced search “recruitment and selection”, period 2018–2023      → 28 articles → filter by journal (“Hematology, Transfusion and Cell Therapy”) → 1 selected article.
Database 3: SPELL	Advanced search “recruitment and selection”, period 2018–2023 ; document = article; area = Administration; language = Portuguese → 20 articles found → 5 selected.
Total number of identified articles	20 articles after applying initial filters.
Application of exclusion criteria	Exclusion of duplicate articles and those not adhering to the study’s objective.
Total final of studies included	10 articles composed the final corpus of the review.
Analysis procedure	Reading, information extraction, and organization of articles according to the established descriptors and criteria

Following the steps proposed by Bardin^[6], the stage of results treatment and interpretation, the categories were analyzed in light of the theoretical framework, allowing for the identification of convergences between studies, conceptual tensions, and the persistence of racial inequality patterns in recent literature. This process made it possible to interpret in an integrated manner how scientific production has addressed the relationship between racism and recruitment, contributing to the revelation of gaps, contradictions, and critical points in the field.

It should be noted that, although the systematic review delimited a corpus of 10 articles for the analysis of recent scientific production (2018-2023), the discussion of thematic categories was enriched by a theoretical foundation of historical and sociological basis. This choice is justified by the need to anchor contemporary findings in structuring concepts of Brazilian literature on race relations, using seminal authors who, although not captured by the temporal filters of the systematic search, are indispensable for understanding structural and institutional racism in the labor market.

In order to systematize the studies analyzed in this literature review, Table 2, was elaborated, presented at the end of this section, in which the main references and their theoretical contributions are synthesized.

Table 2. Synthesis of literature review studies

Category of Analysis	Main authors / studies	Contribution to the category
1. Racial division of labor in Brazil	Alves (2022)[1]; Jesus (2021)[7]; Fernandes (2007)[8]; Silva-Reis & Bagno (2016)[9]; Silva (2012)[10].	Discusses the slave and colonial heritage as structuring elements of the black person’s subalternity in the labor market and the unequal distribution of prestige.
2. Structural and Institutional Racism	Ferreira et al. (2023)[4]; Alencar & Silva (2021)[11]; Almeida (2019)[12]; Lopes (2012)[13]; Gomes (2005)[14]; Figueiredo (2017)[15]; Collins (1990)[5].	Analyzes how racism operates invisibly within organizational norms and the psychological impacts of institutionalized exclusion.
3. Impact on employability and R&D	Bento (2022)[16]; Carneiro (2023)[17]; Paixão and Carvano (2008)[18]; Souza (2021)[19]: Florentino and Góes (2013)[20]; Santos & Cruz (2019)[21].	Examines the barriers in recruitment and selection processes, the “whiteness pact,” and the maintenance of privileges under the myth of meritocracy.

Category 1 – Racial division of labor in Brazil

The colonial process that marked the social formation of Brazil was structured by the logic of domination, in which foreign powers appropriated the territory disregarding both the original populations and their ways of life. This occupation imposed a regime of slave labor that sustained the emergence of capitalism in the country and organized the historical foundations of structural racism. From this model, forms of racial division of labor and dynamics of violence were instituted that continue to reverberate in contemporary social relations^[1].

The Brazilian territory, during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, was marked by the migration of slaves from Africa to the Brazilian colonies, with the objective of adding labor, as people were needed for slave labor, being these, victims of inhumane conditions, treated as commodities for exchange and exploitation^[9].

Migration as a political project of Brazil aimed to add to the slave labor system, as well as to bring Europeans to miscegenate the country, as it was understood that Black people were intellectually inferior, their usefulness reduced to slave labor, manual labor, being seen as an impediment to the country’s economic development^[10].

With the European migratory movement as a justification for leveraging the Brazilian economy, the phenomenon of racial division of labor occurred in Brazil; the idea of occupying with European labor led to the segregation of the Black population. With European occupation in industries, the Black population was prevented from economic wage employment, in addition to the lack of assistance with housing, health, and other basic rights not guaranteed by the state. This also happened in the labor market, leaving them only with informal work conditions, subordinate positions, or unemployment, with the slave logic still strongly embedded in the social imagination and social relations^[1].

In this sense, the historical division of labor reverberates in current selection processes, as the screening of candidates tends to reproduce this logic of subalternity, directing the Black population to operational functions and keeping the most prestigious positions restricted to profiles racialized as superior.

Category 2 – Structural and Institutional Racism in the Labor Market

In Brazil, racism has reached proportions that go beyond the individual spheres, constituting a structural phenomenon whose roots date back to the colonial period. This historical legacy has produced deep marks on contemporary social organization, configuring what is recognized as institutional racism. This institutionalized dimension of racism has generated significant harm by restricting the access of the Black population to various spaces of sociability, participation, and social mobility^[13].

Institutional racism corresponds to a systematic limitation of access to social, economic, political, and decision-making spaces in society, producing concrete restrictions on opportunities for social participation. This dynamic impacts a lack of opportunity or lack of access to spaces, due to an ideology that devalues Black people, legitimizing exclusion and naturalizing structural inequalities ^[13].

In this way, Black aesthetics is continuously invalidated in certain social and institutional contexts, producing symbolic-level constraints that pressure the subject to conform to racialized norms of acceptability. This dynamic imposes the need for the development of diverse and complex coping strategies, as racism comes to be conceived as a structuring mechanism of discrimination that organizes society and the labor market^[14].

Figueiredo^[15] contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms by which blackness is socially denied by mobilizing the concept of “control images,” elaborated by Collins (1990). These images operate as symbolic devices that regulate and delimit the representations of the black population, assigning them inferiorized positions, such as subalternity, subservience, and hypersexualization. Such stereotyped constructions shape social perceptions and guide everyday practices, producing and legitimizing racist attitudes that permeate social relations.

Category 3 – Impact of racial inequalities on employability

The presence of the Black population in the Brazilian labor market becomes robust from the 1930s onwards, with the advancement of cities and agricultural expansion. Even so, this insertion occurs mainly in precarious and socially devalued activities^[8].

The precariousness of working conditions faced by the Black population in Brazil translates into structural inequalities that span income, access to rights, and possibilities for social advancement. As demonstrated by the analyses of Paixão and Carvano^[18], the labor market continues to operate according to racialized logics, which restrict opportunities for Black men and women and position them disadvantageously when compared to the White population. This dynamic is reinforced by historical mechanisms of exclusion that, although currently less explicit, continue to operate in an institutionalized manner.

The naturalization of these inequalities, often masked by the myth of racial democracy, contributes to legitimizing practices that keep black workers concentrated in occupations marked by informality, low social protection, and fewer possibilities for mobility. In this scenario, as Carneiro^[17] points out, racial inequality is not a side effect, but a structural component of the country’s economic and social organization, reproduced by the combination of institutional racism and the logic of labor exploitation in Brazilian capitalism.

In the labor market, these logics result in persistent patterns of precariousness, informality, turnover, and limited opportunities for advancement for the Black population. As analyses by Paixão and Carvano^[18] show, hiring, remuneration, and promotion structures continue to be organized according to racialized hierarchies, which keeps Black workers in positions of lower status and less social protection. This scenario is reinforced by institutional racism, which, even without explicit legal segregation mechanisms, produces continuous discriminatory effects.

In this context, the challenges faced by Black people cannot be interpreted as individual or circumstantial issues. As Almeida^[12] and Bento^[16] argue, the Brazilian labor market reproduces racial inequalities by unequally distributing prestige, income, and opportunities. Subtle exclusion mechanisms such as: access barriers, racialized assessment of skills, and stereotyped expectations, hinder the professional mobility of Black workers. Souza^[19] adds that this naturalization of racism prevents denunciation and strengthens trajectories marked by instability and limited advancement.

Therefore, exclusion in the labor market starts with recruitment barriers. More than a matter of qualification, selection processes operate with indirect exclusion mechanisms that hinder the access and advancement of Black professionals, consolidating the trajectories of instability and lack of professional mobility described previously.

The results of this literature review show that racism acts not only as a historical residue but as an organizing principle of the Brazilian occupational structure. The racial division of labor established during the slave period produced a labor hierarchy that, even after abolition, continued to guide the unequal distribution of opportunities^[1],[20]. This heritage is not limited to the distant past: it is updated through institutional mechanisms that filter Black people’s access to positions of greater prestige, transforming historical inequalities into apparently meritocratic criteria. Thus, structural racism, reinforced by institutional practices that naturalize exclusion under the narrative of racial democracy, operates as a social technology for maintaining privileges and containing economic mobility^{[13],[12],[17]}.

In the field of recruitment and selection, it is observed that these processes reproduce and update inequalities through devices of racialized assessment, normative expectations of professional profile, and stereotypes that implicitly guide decisions^[18],[16]. The “control images”^[5],[15] function as cognitive matrices that legitimize the association between race and competence, influencing the classification, framing, and valuation of candidates. Consequently, people management ceases to be a neutral space and becomes a mechanism for reproducing structural inequalities, even under supposedly technical practices^[21].

It is concluded that facing these dynamics requires not only procedural adjustments but a critical review of the logics that sustain the selection criteria. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of anti-racist practices in transforming organizational structures and challenging the assumptions that historically legitimize racial inequality in the Brazilian labor market.

REFERENCES

[1] Alves, L. D. (2022). A divisão racial do trabalho como um ordenamento do racismo estrutural. Revista Katálysis, 25(2), 212–221.

[2] Varella, T. C., & Pierantoni, C. R. (2008). Mercado de trabalho: Revendo conceitos. Physis: Revista de Saúde Coletiva, 18(3), 521–544.

[3] Cardoso, D. S., & Theodoro, A. R. (2024). Racismo estrutural e desigualdade social no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, 129, 135–167.

[4] Ferreira, C. A. A., Nunes, S. C., & Santos, J. N. (2023). O papel das relações raciais no mercado de trabalho brasileiro: processos de recrutamento e seleção em foco. Cadernos EBAPE.BR, 21, e2022-0039.

[5] Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness and the politics of empowerment. Unwin Hyman.

[6] Bardin, L. (2016). Análise de conteúdo. Edições 70.

[7] Jesus, A. C. A. (2021). Race and work in the 20th century: The origin of racial inequalities in the Brazilian labor market (1920–1960). Mosaico, 13(20), 158–178.

[8] Fernandes, F. (2007). A integração do negro na sociedade de classes. Globo.

[9] Silva-Reis, D., & Bagno, M. (2016). Os intérpretes e a formação do Brasil: Os quatro primeiros séculos de uma história esquecida. Cadernos de Tradução, 36(3), 81–108.

[10] Silva, M. L. (2012). Miscigenação e biopolítica no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de História & Ciências Sociais, 4(8).

[11] Alencar, A. V., & Silva, E. F. (2021). Revisão sistemática sobre trabalho, racismo e sofrimento psíquico no contexto brasileiro. Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão, 41(spe2), e191716.

[12] Almeida, S. (2019). Racismo estrutural (1. ed.). São Paulo: Pólen.

[13] Lopes, L. C. (2012). O conceito de racismo institucional: Aplicações no campo da saúde. Interface-Comunicação, Saúde Educação, 16(42), 121-134.

[14] Gomes, N. L. (2005). Alguns termos e conceitos presentes no debate sobre relações raciais no Brasil: Uma breve discussão. In BRASIL. MEC. Educação anti-racista: Caminhos abertos pela Lei Federal nº 10. 639⁄03 (pp. 39-62). MEC.

[15] Figueiredo, A. (2017). Somente um ponto de vista. Cadernos Pagu, (51).

[16] Bento, M. A. S. (2022). O pacto da branquitude. Companhia das Letras.

[17] Carneiro, S. (2023). Racismo, sexismo e desigualdade no Brasil. Jandaíra.

[18] Paixão, M., & Carvano, L. M. (2008). Relatório anual das desigualdades raciais no Brasil: 2009–2010. Garamond.

[19] Souza, J. (2021). A elite do atraso: Da escravidão à Lava Jato. Estação Brasil.

[20] Florentino, M., & Góes, J. R. P. (2013). Padrões de mobilidade e miscigenação racial no Brasil escravista, Rio de Janeiro, século XIX. América Latina en la historia económica, 20(3), 1-32.

[21] Santos, E. A. P., & Cruz, M. T. S. (Eds.). (2019). Gestão de pessoas no século XXI: Desafios e tendências para além de modismos. Tiki Books; PUC-SP.

COMO CITAR

Nascimento, F.K.L.; Ferreira, A.L.Marcador racial em processos seletivos: uma revisão de literatura. Revista E&S. 2026; 7: e2025045.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Flávia Kelly Lima Nascimento – Pedagogical Analyst. Specialist in People Management. 40130-160, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

André Luiz Ferreira – Professor and psychologist. PhD in Psychology. Herminio Ometto Foundation. Avenida Dr. Maximiliano Baruto, 500, Jardim Universitário, 13607-339, Araras, São Paulo, Brazil.