Abstract
The objective of this paper is to explore the interplay between schooling and demographics in Brazil. We would like to provide a preliminary answer to the question of how long will improvements in schooling of younger cohorts take o change the distribution of educational endowments of the total labor force. This answer depends on two factors. The first is the demographic composition of the working age population — the weight each cohort has in the 16 to 70 year old population. The second is the distribution of schooling within each cohort — its average educational level and the inequality within each cohort. These two factors — demography and education by cohort — define the average educational level and the distribution of education for the working age population in any given year. This paper takes a standard demographic projection and makes various hypotheses about the evolution of education — both the mean and inequality.