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Social Classes of Brazil
Social Classes
Brazil inherited a highly stratified society from the colonial system
and from slavery, which persisted for nearly three generations after
independence in 1822. The legacy of sharp socioeconomic stratification
is reflected in Brazil's highly skewed income distribution, among
the world's worst (see Inequality and Poverty, ch. 3). The relatively
high average per capita income (US$4,086 in 1995) masks deep inequality.
During the postwar period, income concentration and regional disequilibrium
did not change significantly despite numerous government policies
aimed at greater equity. Poverty was widespread, reaching the lowest
levels in the rural parts of the Northeast, but also including pockets
of urban poverty in the largest cities in the developed regions.
In 1990 the number of indigents suffering from extreme poverty (see
Glossary) was estimated to be at least 32 million, about one-fifth
of the country's total population. This included an estimated 9.6
percent of the residents of metropolitan areas, 18.4 percent of
the population of other urban areas, and 42.8 percent of the rural
population.
Socioeconomic inequality involves subtle forms of residential,
educational, and workplace discrimination, in such ways that members
of distinct socioeconomic strata tend to live, work, and circulate
in different settings. The well-to-do live in chic neighborhoods,
usually centrally located, go to private schools, drive or ride
in cars, and shop at malls. The urban poor live in favelas or distant
housing projects, take long bus trips to work, go to public schools
or drop out, and shop at smaller supermarkets or local shops. The
rural poor in the country's interior are practically invisible to
the urban upper and middle classes.
Despite such social segregation, class solidarity is not strong.
Instead of horizontal class ties, numerous cross-cutting vertical
relationships involve personal dependence on individuals who have
more property and prestige. Given the circumstances, these relationships
of clientelism and paternalism are advantageous for both patrons
and clients. Because of the lack of effective government services
and real possibilities for class action, the poor have few alternatives
but to seek the protection of patrons. The traditional rural forms
of patronage have been described as colonelism (coronelismo --see
Glossary), referring to the fact that rural bosses often had military
titles (see The Old or First Republic, 1889-1930, ch. 1). Among
other things, colonels (coronéis ) used their influence over
their clientele for electoral purposes. Such vertical interpersonal
ties continue to be stronger in rural areas, especially in the Northeast,
but they also persist in other forms in urban settings and at various
levels of the socioeconomic scale. Even members of the modern middle
class tend to have lower-income persons or families dependent on
them for such things as domestic employment and economic or health
emergencies. They, in turn, seek help from powerful friends and
relatives.
Contrary to dualistic stereotypes of Latin American societies,
Brazilian class structure cannot be reduced to a wealthy landed
elite versus masses of poor peasants and workers. The middle sectors
or classes have been significant at least since the nineteenth century.
Sectors of Brazil's population that were neither slave owners nor
slaves began to grow in the colonial period, when craftsmen, shopkeepers,
small farmers, freed slaves, and persons of mixed racial origin
began to outnumber slave owners and eventually slaves. During the
twentieth century, the middle sectors continued to grow. The present
middle class does not own large properties, industries, or firms
but also is not destitute. It consists largely of a technical work
force--clerks, professionals, teachers, salespersons, public servants,
and highly skilled workers. Its position is based more on knowledge
and skills than on property. A surge of upward mobility strengthened
the middle class during the "economic miracle" in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. At the same time, blue-collar workers
with middle to low levels of skills constitute a lower middle class
that is numerically very significant.
In addition to those formally employed, many workers are in the
so-called informal economy (see Glossary), which includes self-employed
businessmen and workers who do not have the legal protection of
labor legislation. In 1990 the informal sector accounted for nearly
half of the economically active population. The informal sector
grows in times of recession because of unemployment and during times
of prosperity, when opportunities for making money are more readily
available. A survey released in 1996 by the Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics (Fundação Instituto Brasileiro
de Geografia e Estatística--IBGE) showed that only 85 percent
of those questioned wanted to seek formal employment.
Increasingly, the system of social stratification that was originally
based on property (land or industry) has evolved in such a way that
individuals who acquire special technical skills or know-how are
able to earn reasonable incomes. Outside these two groups of propertied
or skilled individuals lies a significant mass, perhaps a majority,
that is excluded in the sense of limited participation in markets
and poor access to government services, such as health, education,
and sanitation.
Gender
For reasons of property transmission and religion, Brazilian society
was originally strongly patriarchal, but there was also strong tension
between rigid norms of Iberian origin and the extenuating circumstances
of frontier life, where conditions were not favorable for compliance
with the norms. The difficulty of putting Roman
Catholic values into effective practice in the context of poverty,
isolation, and unbalanced male/female sex ratios (number of men
per 100 women) reinforced the Mediterranean double moral standard
for men and women. Men were expected to demonstrate their masculinity,
while proper women were supposed to remain virgins until marriage
and to be faithful to their husbands. This double standard also
favored frequent consensual unions, illegitimacy, and prostitution.
Such behavior was not entirely acceptable but was tolerated more
readily in Brazil, generally speaking, than in North America and
the rest of Latin America.
Although women were allowed open access to schools and employment
around the turn of the century and suffrage on a national level
in 1933, they were not on an equal footing with men in family affairs.
Men were automatically heads of households, and married women were
legally subordinate to their husbands. Because of the inconvenience
caused by informal remarriage, divorce was made legal in 1977. Under
the constitution of 1988, women became entirely equal to men for
all legal purposes.
Female participation in the labor force grew dramatically in the
1970s and 1980s, as a result of new employment patterns, especially
the expansion of the services sector, and economic pressures on
family income. Women are most commonly employed as domestic servants.
The economic participation of women in Brazil rose from 18 percent
in 1970 to 27 percent by 1980 and 30 percent by 1990 (although such
figures might underestimate actual rates of participation by failing
to include the informal activities that characterize small and/or
household enterprises). More than 70 percent of women in the labor
force are employed by the services sector (as compared with 42 percent
of men), and women tend to be underrepresented among the formal
labor force in agricultural and industrial activities. Patterns
of labor force participation vary considerably by region. In the
early 1990s, rates of female labor force participation ranged from
36.8 percent in Rio
de Janeiro to 33.1 percent in the Northeast. In Brazil, as in
most other countries in Latin America, rates of females participating
in the job market appear to increase with education, especially
the proportion of single educated women entering the formal sector
rather than the informal and self-employed sectors.
There is a considerable wage gap between men and women. According
to one recent estimate, the differential between women and men is
less pronounced in urban areas (for example, women earn on average
77.8 percent of men's wages in Rio de Janeiro and 73.6 percent in
São Paulo), and most pronounced in the Northeast (where,
on average, women earn 63.5 percent of the wages of men). Average
wages are also considerably lower in the Northeast, where women's
average hourly wages are 42 percent of the prevailing average in
Rio de Janeiro. According to recent economic studies, only a small
portion (between 11 percent and 19 percent of wage differentials
in the formal labor force) can be attributed to differences between
men and women in their endowments (such as education or experience).
For the most part, the wage gap probably reflects discriminatory
practices.
Recent decades have also been characterized by significant changes
in family structures. For example, the available data suggest a
considerable increase over the past decades in female-headed households,
which include the poorest of the poor, from 13 percent in 1970 to
16 percent in 1980 and 20 percent by the late 1980s. This process
has been termed the "feminization of poverty." Once again,
there are considerable differences among regions; in the urban North
Region, for example, over 24 percent of households were headed by
women in the late 1980s, while their relative share in the South
was closer to 16 percent.
Despite persistent gender inequality, the status of women in Brazil
is improving on various fronts. As a rule, there are as many females
as males in schools,
even at the highest levels, and professions that traditionally were
dominated by males, such as
law, medicine,
dentistry,
and engineering, are becoming more balanced in terms of gender,
if there are not already more women students than men. More women
than men are in the National
Lawyers' Association (Associação Nacional dos
Advogados). The attitudes and practices of young people are generally
not as sexist as those of their parents, at least among youth of
families with higher income and education.
Nevertheless, there are still relatively few women in positions
of power. They have a significant, albeit limited, presence in high
levels of federal government, although they have better representation
at the state and municipal levels. Since the government of João
Baptista do Oliveira Figueiredo (president, 1979-85), several female
ministers have been in the cabinet, and in 1994 two women were candidates
for vice president. By 1994 women made up only 7 percent of the
Congress (see Women in Politics, ch. 4).
Women's movements grew in the 1980s, when a National Council on
Women's Rights (Conselho Nacional de Direitos da Mulher--CNDM) was
created. Originally, the feminist movement was closely connected
to human rights movements and resistance to the military regime.
In the 1980s and 1990s, attention shifted to violence against women,
especially domestic violence and sexual abuse and harassment. One
original response to this kind of problem was the creation of special
police stations for women. Women's movements also mobilized support
for reproductive health and rights, as defined in the 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo.
Data as of April 1997
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