Crime-associated inequality in geographical access to education: Insights from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro
Cities, 2025
View articleAbout
I am a Professor of Sociology at the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (IESP) of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). I hold a PhD in Sociology from the University of São Paulo (USP), where I also completed my Master's degree. I did my undergraduate studies in Social Sciences at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).
I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Political Science at USP, was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Brazil Lab at Princeton University.
I co-coordinate the Centro para o Estudo da Riqueza e Estratificação Social (CERES-IESP/UERJ) with Carlos Antônio Costa Ribeiro, and I am an associated researcher at the Centro de Estudos da Metrópole (CEM-USP).
My research focuses on long-term trends in income inequality in Brazil, using historical surveys, administrative data, and contemporary microdata. I also develop open-source R packages for social research.
Research
My research examines inequality, stratification, and labor markets through quantitative methods.
Income Inequality
Long-term trends in earnings inequality in Brazil (1960-present), examining the roles of education, labor market institutions, and policy.
Social Stratification
Intergenerational mobility, educational inequality, and the reproduction of social advantages across generations.
Labor Markets
Employment dynamics, occupational structure, informality, and the impacts of economic crises on workers.
Quantitative Methods
Survey methodology, causal inference, spatial analysis, and development of R packages for social research.
Urban Violence & Education
Impacts of armed group territorial control on educational outcomes in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area.
Social Policy
Cash transfer programs, emergency aid during COVID-19, and their effects on poverty and inequality.
Research Center
CERES — Center for the Study of Wealth and Social Stratification
CERES is the research hub I co-direct at IESP-UERJ, convening systematic work on stratification, mobility, inequality, wealth, poverty, and labor markets in Brazil. It hosts graduate seminars, produces the data infrastructure behind much of the research listed on this site, and is the institutional home of the Lego I–III methods sequence.
Current Projects
InfoCitizen - Informational Citizenship
Studying citizenship practices and technologies around data production in the Global South, focusing on Brazil's 2022 census controversies.
Armed Groups and Educational Inequality
Examining how territorial control by armed groups (drug trafficking and militias) constrains educational opportunities in Rio de Janeiro.
Selected Publications
Full list available on Google Scholar (900+ citations, h-index: see profile).
Decomposing Heterogeneity in Inequality of Educational Opportunities: Family Income and Academic Performance in Brazilian Higher Education
Sociological Science, 2024
View articleA Sociologia da desigualdade de renda
Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 2023
View articleFree public transit and voter turnout
Electoral Studies, 2023
View articleHigher risk of death from COVID-19 in low-income and non-White populations of São Paulo, Brazil
BMJ Global Health, 2021
View articleThe Impact of COVID-19 in Brazil: Labour Market and Social Protection Responses
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2020
View articleEducational expansion, inequality and poverty reduction in Brazil: A simulation study
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 2019
View articleDesigualdade de Rendimentos do Trabalho no Curto e no Longo Prazo: Tendências de Idade, Período e Coorte
Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais, 2016
View articleTrabalhar para estudar: sobre a pertinência da noção de transição escola-trabalho no Brasil
Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 2011
View articleBook Chapters
A Imaginação Quantitativa
In: Metodologia de Pesquisa em Sociologia. UFSCar, 2024
Religious Transition in Brazil
In: Paths of Inequality in Brazil. Springer, 2018
Labor Market, Income Inequalities and Poverty
In: São Paulo in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge, 2016
Tools
Public-facing applications for researchers, journalists, and policy analysts — no coding required.
PNADCperiods Dashboard
Web App (Shiny)Explore 86+ monthly Brazilian labor-market series — unemployment, wages, informality — by state, sex, and age, with interactive charts and CSV export. Built on top of the PNADCperiods R package, so you do not need to know R to use it.
Transcritorio
Desktop AppLocal, GPU-accelerated transcription of qualitative interviews. WhisperX ASR, speaker diarization, and a built-in review studio. 100% offline, no cloud.
Software
Open-source R packages for quantitative social research.
PNADCperiods
R Package (CRAN)Convert Brazil's quarterly PNADC survey data into monthly, fortnightly, and weekly time series, and mensalize IBGE SIDRA aggregate series. Achieves ~97% monthly determination using IBGE's technical rules and birthday constraints, with calibrated survey weights. Includes an interactive dashboard for exploring 86+ official series.
censobr
R Package (CRAN)Easy access to data from every Brazilian Population Census taken since 1960. Downloads and reads microdata, aggregate tables, and official documentation directly into R.
With Rafael H.M. Pereira (IPEA)
heckmanGE
R Package (CRAN)Estimation and inference for generalized Heckman selection models. Provides sandwich estimators, cluster-robust standard errors, and handling of eigenvalue issues in the variance-covariance matrix.
With Fernando S. B. Bastos (UFV) and Marcos O. Prates (UFMG)
tableInequality
R PackageCalculate inequality measures from categorical/tabulated data. Useful when only grouped data is available.
Teaching
Graduate Courses (IESP-UERJ)
A three-term graduate sequence in quantitative methods (Lego I–II–III), plus substantive seminars on poverty, the life course, and sociological theory. Offered at the Graduate Programs in Sociology and Political Science of IESP-UERJ.
I
Lego I — Quantitative Methods
3 offeringsIntroduction to quantitative analysis for the social sciences: statistical foundations, data preparation, descriptive analysis, and hypothesis testing in R.
With Carlos A. Costa Ribeiro · Fernando Meireles
II
Lego II — Linear Regression & Extensions
4 offeringsLinear regression and its extensions (GLS, fixed effects, logistic, multilevel); diagnostics, robust inference, and applied workflows.
With Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza
III
Lego III — Causal Inference
2 offeringsCausal methods for observational, quasi-experimental, and experimental data: potential outcomes, difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, matching.
With Carlos A. Costa Ribeiro · Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza
Inequalities Across the Life Course
SeminarHow inequalities in earnings, education, and health accumulate and compound over individual lifetimes.
With Carlos A. Costa Ribeiro · Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza
Poverty: What, How Much, Where, How, and Why?
SeminarConceptual debates (absolute vs. relative, monetary vs. multidimensional), Brazilian measurement practice, and the political economy of poverty lines.
With Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza
Unequal Controversies
SeminarDebates and methodological disputes in contemporary stratification and inequality research. Offered at IESP as Teoria Sociológica III – Controvérsias Desiguais.
With Carlos A. Costa Ribeiro
See all 12 offerings, chronologically (2021–2026)
- 2026.1 Lego III — Causal Inference with Costa Ribeiro & Souza
- 2025.2 Lego II — Linear Regression & Extensions
- 2025.1 Lego III — Causal Inference with Costa Ribeiro & Souza
- 2024.2 Lego II — Linear Regression & Extensions with Souza
- 2024.1 Inequalities Across the Life Course with Costa Ribeiro & Souza
- 2023.2 Poverty: What, How Much, Where, How, and Why? with Souza
- 2023.1 Lego I — Quantitative Methods with Meireles
- 2022.2 Lego II — Linear Regression & Extensions
- 2022.1 Unequal Controversies with Costa Ribeiro
- 2022.1 Lego I — Quantitative Methods with Costa Ribeiro
- 2021.2 Lego II — Linear Regression & Extensions
- 2021.1 Lego I — Quantitative Methods with Costa Ribeiro
Short Courses & Workshops
Introduction to R
Programming fundamentals for social science research.
Web Scraping with R
Automated data collection from the internet.
Measuring Poverty and Inequality in Brazil
Concepts, methods, and data for contemporary Brazil.
Blog
I co-author Sociais & Métodos, a Portuguese-language blog on quantitative methods, R programming, and social science research methodology.
Contact
Office
Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (IESP-UERJ)
Rua da Matriz, 82
Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
22260-100, Brazil