The truth behind intermittent work: impacts for gender (in)equality in Brazil. Lessons to be learnt from Portugal

Abstract

Over the past decades, gender equality has gained much emphasis as part of the scope of labour human rights. However, in 2017, the Intermittent Work Contract (IWC) was introduced in Brazilian labour laws, allowing more flexible working, but also threatening the human rights effectiveness regarding gender equality in labour. While society was convinced that IWC would be positive for gender representation, it will in fact, result in worse conditions of work for women. A similar process has occurred in Portugal, IWC was also recently introduced in the legal framework, causing a raise in precarity of work contracts especially for women. It reinforced the invisible process of feminine underemployment and accentuated gender inequality. Therefore, a comparison between the IWC systems in Brazil and Portugal allows to predict the impacts of flexible work relationships for gender equality in Brazil. After all, both nations have similar laws, a common historical and cultural background and experienced analogous social-economic contexts of IWC implementation. This work aims to explain via a legal and socialeconomic analysis which and how negative will be the impacts of IWC for women in Brazil based in the Portuguese experience, considering the similarities and differences between both nations. Keywords: Intermittent work, Gender equality, Labour Rights, Human Rights