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This article provides information about the social challenges confronting brazil since the 1980’s:
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.
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The richest 10% households have 70 times the income of the poorest 10 %. 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 globalisation.
Without any doubt, the pattern of economic growth based on protected industrialisation 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.
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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 restructuring process leading to technical and management modernisation 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 organisation. 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 stabilisation, 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.
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.
Brazil’s regional and social disparities are also reflected in the great inequalities of its education system. In 1994 UNICEF rated Brazil’s basic education system as being in the last place in world ranking, with large rates of non-attendance in poor states. In a hopeful development, however, primary education in Brazil is being radically reformed. Over the past 10 years illiteracy rates have been widening between the richest and poorest states. And though poverty started to decline in the early 1990s, it did so unevenly.
The North is the only region that has seen poverty increase, rising from 36% in 1990 to 44% in 2001. Why are so many people being left behind when overall growth is good? The culprit is not a shortfall in average
resources but highly persistently high inequality. Not only is the North seeing poverty increase, it is also lagging on the HDI- unlike the wealthy, urban South (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul) and unlike the Northeast, which has seen substantial improvements in its HDI.
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 behaviour 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.
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Health indicators in Brazil have shown great progress over the last 50 years. The average life expectancy of Brazilians has increased considerably. Infant mortality rates, although they are still high by both world and Latin American standards, are almost four times lower than they were at the beginning of the 1940s. The morbidity structure and the mortality profile have undergone substantial changes.
The main causes of death, earlier centred on the so-called communicable diseases, are today to be found, with increased urbanisation, among chronic-degenerative diseases (cardiovascular problems and tumours) and in external causes such as accidents and homicides, both resulting to a large extent from daily life in large cities. Learning resources for national curriculum). This does not mean that communicable diseases have disappeared.
They continue to exist, although concentrated in particular pockets of rural poverty and associated in large measure with migratory movements, notably in the North-East, North and Central-East regions. The North-East for example still shows high infant mortality rates, especially related to the poor state of nutrition of a high proportion of children and newborn babies. The return of endemic diseases which had been eradicated such as cholera, and the emergence of new ones, such as AIDS, is new characteristics of disease profile, requiring new forms of preventive action from the government.
In spite of the progress seen, Brazil still shows regional differences in its health indicators. Regions such as the North-East have sickness patterns which are very similar to those of the most backward countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Whereas the states of the South, South-East and the Federal District, where in spite of the internal dissimilarity of the indicators, health conditions are to be found that are similar to those of many developed countries.