 Women earn 29% less than men, despite women having an average of one year more education.Some believe that these parallels between South Africa during the apartheid era and modern-day Brazil are associated with the country's history of slavery and associated racial castes, as inequities in the economic and social status particularly affect Afro-Brazilians in comparison to other groups.According to São Paulo Congressman Aloizio Mercadante, a member of Brazil's leftist Workers' Party (PT), "Just as South Africa had racial apartheid, Brazil has social apartheid."