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This chapter considers the impact of schooling quality as well as quantity on earnings and their links to labour market outcomes. The authors, in an earlier study, proposed a tractable empirical measure of schooling quality. This study, using 1980 census data, investigates the fading between 1970 and 1980 of the relative importance of schooling in explaining earnings variations for the 15-35 age group. The authors believe that it is primarily due to macro shocks, but that it can also be influenced by life-cycle effects such as learning by employers and employees, and greater exposure to persistent previously unanticipated individual events. Based on wage rates rather than earnings, the authors estimates indicate strong effects of schooling quality interacting with school quantity in 1980. The outcomes of this study are presented, reaffirming that schooling quality is important in Brazilian labour market outcomes.