The presence of women and black people in high-level positions in the Brazilian public service has increased over time, but is still small. According to researchers, between 1999 and 2025, men held 75% of management positions in the sector and white people, 78%. During the period, black and brown people were, respectively, around 3% and 14%. The information is part of three studies that are part of the Public Leadership in Brazil research: Mobility, Trajectories and Profile of Management, Leadership and Advisory Positions, conducted by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), in partnership with the civil entity Movimento Pessoa à Frente and the Lemann Foundation. Related news: Female candidates are growing, but the number of elected officials remains low. Unemployment among young black women reaches 24.7%, study shows. Seal recognizes business initiatives in favor of equality. When releasing the data, this Tuesday (16), the researchers highlighted that, although they are gaining increasing space, women and black people in general continue to be underrepresented at the top level of the public service. According to them, advances, especially among women, who currently occupy close to 40% of management positions, have intensified from 2022 onwards, but still do not reflect the plurality of Brazilian society. >> Follow the Agência Brasil channel on WhatsApp The greatest diversity is observed precisely in ministries such as Racial Equality and Women. Furthermore, for researchers, appointments from people outside the public service have worked as one of the paths to more diversity, as women and people of color appear more frequently among those recruited externally. Type of hiring that, according to researchers, was the majority until around 2004, when it began to fall consistently, mainly due to laws that began to require minimum percentages of career employees in management. Paradoxically, the observation of the impact of external recruitment to oxygenate the state bureaucracy and accelerate the process of promoting race and gender equality in the public service clashes with the myth that, to climb the top of the sector, it would be enough to have a political appointment. According to one of the studies presented this Tuesday, The Various Faces of Managing Bureaucracy: Profile of Senior Leadership in the Brazilian Federal Administration, in the period analyzed (1999-2025), the upper echelon of the federal public sector was mostly occupied by civil servants with public contracts. These were 63% of the personnel assigned to former Special Management and Advisory (DAS) level 5 or Special Nature positions, such as executive or special secretariats and presidencies or directorships of autonomous entities, among others. Of these, 75% already had previous experience in the public sector before taking on the management role; 86% completed higher education (although only 10% had postgraduate degrees) and 16% were formally affiliated with a political party. A second study, Loss or Circulation of Leadership? Trajectories of Brazilian Public Managers at RAIS, 2009-2023, demonstrates that, when looking at the duration of episodes in a specific body and position, the stay is shorter: 57% last up to two years and 37% end in the first year. The path to leadership, however, goes well beyond that. Among the people who assume leadership, 79% remain in management positions in another body after two years, 55% after four and around 20% after ten years. Furthermore, 80% of civil servants who leave a management position continue in the public sector the following year.  Another fact that caught the attention of researchers is that, at the federal level, 44% of managers who leave a given public body return to it at some point – a phenomenon that scholars have dubbed the “boomerang effect”. “These indices demonstrate that a considerable part of what is understood as turnover actually corresponds to the circulation of these leaders within the State itself, with the gain of accumulated experience”, point out the studies, suggesting the existence of a bureaucratic elite capable of accumulating institutional memory and technically professionalizing management. Especially because, on average, those occupying the old DAS-5 positions had, on average, eight years and four months of previous experience in commission positions, and those at level 6, nine and a half years, showing that, in most cases, the rise to the top is gradual. General coordinator of the research project and author of the third study, Vertical Mobility and Trajectory of Managers in the Federal Executive Bureaucracy, Ipea planning and research technician Felix Lopez highlighted the importance of the findings. “Every discussion about state capacity involves, at some point, knowing who governs the public sector and what is the logic behind selecting the people who occupy management positions,” said Lopez. For him, the results of the three studies indicate a much more complex and, in many aspects, interesting reality than common sense presupposes. “At the highest point of the [federal] bureaucracy there is a point of convergence between the demands of political authority and the day-to-day functioning of the State,” added Lopez. "Generally, debates about public positions move between two extremes. On the one hand, the conception of positions as a cement of political coalition and party exchanges, filled by inexperienced allies, to the detriment of efficiency and administrative continuity. On the other extreme, especially in the federal Executive, the merit of an essentially technical and professional bureaucracy is celebrated that formulates and implements policies independently of political pressures on duty. The problem is that neither of these two images comes close to a reality that is much more complex." The final versions of the three studies presented today will soon be published in a thematic edition of the Political-Institutional Analysis Bulletin (Bapi) dedicated to the topic Public Leaders and Democratic Leadership in Brazil, which will be made available on the Ipea website. According to the person responsible for the State, Institutions and Democracy Studies and Policies Directorate (Diest), at Ipea, Luseni Aquino, the three analyzes are part of a broad debate about leadership and state capabilities in Brazil. "People and leaders are fundamental in public administration. Not only because of their role in supporting the public machine and public policy processes, but also because of their potential as actors of innovation and transformation of the State. I think this is an increasingly relevant key when thinking about public management", emphasized Luseni.