Major Nations in a Global World: Brazil

Many of today’s households include two working parents. In addition, the number of single-parent families is also on the rise as is the number of blended families—that is, those made up of biological children as well as those from previous marriages or relation- ships. Married couples are also having fewer children. For fourteen-year-olds in 1963, the average number of siblings was 5.4. Today, that number is 2.3 brothers or sisters.

Why the change? Politics and econom- ics have played a huge role as many Brazilian women have found a new sense of freedom, allowing them to go out into the workplace. Women now make up 60 percent of college graduates in Brazil. Although their economic and political power has grown, many women still have a hard time finding good-paying jobs as managers or in senior positions. The shift, however, has not played out evenly across Brazilian society. Many families, especially those in rural areas, are poor. The head of the household is often illiterate. Poor families also have more young children than wealthier fam- ilies and less access to clean water, education, and health services. Although Brazil is one of the world’s largest economies, it also has one of the highest unequal distributions of income rates in the world. In the 1990s, the wealthiest 20 percent earned twenty-six times as much money as the poorest 20 percent. That number has since dropped, but the richest 1 percent has 13 percent of all household income. In the favelas, or slums of the cities, most families tend to be headed by a mother. Crime, drugs, and economic problems have forced many people to live in the streets. But while unemployment is high in these communities and social problems abound, residents of favelas have a fierce sense of pride and belonging. In fact, many of their families have deep roots in these “shanty- towns,” often built into steep hillsides, having been forced to build makeshift

A family out for a day of leisure in Rio de Janeiro's Botanical Garden.

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CHAPTER TWO: FAMILY AND FRIENDS