The Social Challenges
By: Vilmar Faria
Since the 1980s Brazil has been going through a particularly serious period in relation to her social situation: a very large number of Brazilians are living in a state of poverty and destitution whilst inequality in terms of wealth and income has reached immorally high proportions. This poverty and inequality have their roots in the country's past but their more immediate causes can be found in the process of development based on the replacement of imports carried out by the State between the 1940s and the 1970s; in the crisis of that development pattern ; in the failed attempts at economic adjustment; and in the consequences - still incipient - of the economic restructuring process imposed by globalization.
Without any doubt, the pattern of economic growth based on protected industrialization was responsible for the upturn of an urban industrial economy that was diversified and complex, in terms of both consumption and mass, and on the edge of capitalism. This growth pattern, however, was not able to eliminate poverty and wretchedness although it had contributed towards their reduction at the most dynamic points of its cycle. Neither was it able to reduce the inequalities of wealth and income, having actually accentuated them during recent times. Certain social groups have remained permanently on the margins of its benefits, for example, the mass of rural workers without land, owners of tiny smallholdings increasingly impoverished and falling into debt as well as contingents of marginal urban workers.
The progressive weakening of this pattern of economic growth was accentuated throughout the 1980s, a period that was marked by the debt crisis, the increasing loss of economic dynamism, the mounting public debt and the consequent crisis in the State and Public Administration compounded by recurrent inflation and vicissitudes and uncertainties in relation to unsuccessful attempts to establish economic stability. The situation was made worse during that period by Brazil's social problems: there was once again an increase in the contingent of the poor and destitute, accentuating inequality and increasing the vulnerability of certain sections of the middle and lower middle classes - especially those dependent on the State and its actions.
Brazil moved into the 1990s at the same time as undergoing an economic re-structuring process leading to technical and management modernization as well as to business opportunities, causing sharper competition within the domestic market. These factors have had a profound effect and over the next few years will continue to affect other occupational and social groups, mainly those directly linked to the peripheral pattern of industrial organization. The structural modifications to the economy have had and will continue to have a negative impact on the job-product elasticity and for not inconsiderable sections of the Brazilian people, the problem of employment and the job market could be more acute in the future than it has been in the past.
The recent successful experiment in economic stabilization, represented by the Real Plan introduced in Brazil in mid 1994 marked the beginning of a decline in that trend, especially for the poorest sections of the population. However, with the ending of inflation, certain sections of the population who had been benefiting from it could start to feel more vulnerable.
These various processes are producing a complex structure that is marked by exclusions and social vulnerabilities, as shown in the table illustrating the numbers of poor people and the graph showing the rate of income growth. These issues must be tackled by a varied range of public and government policies. To achieve this, a series of schemes and actions aimed specifically at the social area are being devised and introduced, in an attempt to promote, consolidate or guarantee basic social rights and equality of opportunity, providing protection against situations of recurring risk and making social security available to vulnerable groups.
To this is added the additional challenge to the progress of the Brazilian social issue: the demographic challenge. The demographic transition that has been in progress over the last thirty years has brought about significant changes in the age structure of the population, in family behavior and the job market.
This has caused a far-reaching overhaul of the social security system involving its expansion and improvement. The challenge involved in carrying out these transformations must respect democratic institutions and give social policies a role in the process of consolidating and strengthening democracy, within that context |
