The purpose of this paper was to estimate wage differentials related to several characteristics that were grouped in workers and job characteristics. The objective is then to have registered the brazilian wage structure.

All the results shown on the paper are based on 'Pesquisa sobre Padroes de Vida' (PPV) conducted by IBGE in 1996 and 1997. This survey covers only the part of Brazilian territory correspondent to the Southeast and Northeast regions. As the survey has become available recently, the results present here have no similar in the literature.

The other point of view is the comparison of these new results with those shown by Barros e Mendonca (1996). These authors display selected results from the paper usually pointed as reference for the theme and that are based on a distinct database.