The use of affirmative action by an elite university in Brazil helped students from disadvantaged backgrounds gain good-paying jobs, but also reduced earnings for the school’s most highly-ranked students, according to new research by ILR Assistant Professor Evan Riehl.

In “The direct and spillover effect of large-scale affirmative action at an elite Brazilian university,“ Riehl and his co-authors examine an affirmative action policy at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ), a top-ranked Brazilian university that is comparable to elite private colleges in the U.S. Beginning in 2004, UERJ reserved 45 percent of slots in each major for Black and public high school students from low-income families.

The researchers found that students admitted through the affirmative action track did well academically, and the policy increased their access to firms affiliated with UERJ’s alumni network, which raised their early-career earnings.

But the researchers also found that after UERJ adopted affirmative action, its highly-ranked students, who would have been admitted regardless of whether affirmative action existed, did worse in the labor market upon graduation.

Read the full story on the ILR website.

Julie Greco is a Senior Communications Specialist in the ILR School.