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Demographics of Brazil

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Demographics

Ethnic groups

Most of the population can be considered a single "Brazilian" ethnic group, with highly varied racial types and backgrounds, some broad regional trends, but without clear ethnic sub-divisions. The major source of this diversity has been the sources of immigration from Europe, Middle East and Asia. The only clearly separated minority ethnic groups in Brazil are the various non-assimilated indigenous tribes, comprising less than 1% of the population, who live in officially delimited reservations and either avoid contact with "civilized" people, or have assimilated mainstream Brazilian culture to some extent but still constitute separate social and political communities.

In large part, the population descends from early European settlers — chiefly Portuguese, but also some Italian, French and Dutch —, African slaves (Yoruba, Ewe, Bantu, and others), and assimilated indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi and Guarani, but also of many other ethnic groups). Trans-ethnic marriages and concubinates have been common and somehow well accepted ever since the first Portuguese settlers arrived. Starting in the late 19th century Brazil received substantial immigration from several other countries, mainly Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, Lebanon and Syria (mostly Christians), Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania, Hungary and Armenia, Japan, China and Korea. Jewish people, both from Ashkenazi and Sephardi ascent, form considerably large communities, especially in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Many Brazilians of Portuguese and Spanish ascent also have some Jewish blood, as they descent from new christians which fled to America.

The descendants of the European immigrants, particularly the Germans, Italians, and Poles, are largely concentrated in the southern part of the country, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and São Paulo; these states, together with the Spanish speaking countries of Argentina and Uruguay have a large majority of people of European descent. In the rest of the country, most of the white population is of older settler stock. In the mid-southern states of Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul and in the Federal District of Brasilia, the number of whites is somehow equal to the number of Afro-Brazilian and Mixed Race Brazilians. In the Northeast, which received large masses of African slaves to work in sugarcane, tobacco and cotton plantations, people of African descent are dominant. The city of Salvador da Bahia is considered one of the largest black cities of the World. Many poorer people from the Northeast have migrated to the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in the south, helping improve the racial melting pot that characterizes these two megalopolises. In the Northwest (covering largely the Brazilian Amazonia), great part of the population has distinguisheable ethnic characteristics that emphasize their Native Brazilian roots. In fact, it is the only region where Mixed-Race people have distinct Indian traces. This is due to recent colonization by other ethic groups, which have merged with the Indigenous tribes that lived there. This region, however, is not very populated, and these Mixed-Race peoples with noticeable Indigenous origins (named "caboclos") represent only a tiny part of the entire Brazilian population.

The Japanese are the largest Asian group in Brazil, but some Chinese and Koreans also settled Brazil. Most Chinese came from mainland China, but others came from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and also from Portuguese-speaking Macau—these Chinese from Macau could speak and understand Portuguese, and it was not hard for them to adjust to Brazilian life. Those immigrant populations and their descendants still retain some of their original ethnic identity, however they are not closed communities and are rapidly integrating into mainstream Brazilian society: for instance, very few of the third generation can understand their grandparents' languages.

For most of Brazil's history, the black and mulatto population outnumbered the whites. In 1900, whites were only about one-third of the population. However, European immigration and better health and sanitation among the white population helped boost their percentage of the population to about 55% by the 1970's. Because Brazil does not have much immigration, and because the black and white populations have approximately equal birth rates, this proportion is expected to be stable for the immediate future.

Brazil has always characterized itself as a "racial democracy". This was a term largely used by the elites to show that the only distinction between the peoples of Brazil was social rather than racial. The issue is very complex: on the one hand, color bars were mild indeed. For instance, although fewer whites clearly dominated large groups of Africans and other people of color, Brazil never had an official segregation system, like the ones that once existed in Southern United States and South Africa. Also, interracial sexual contacts between two groups were widely practiced and even encouraged as fostering links between the two communities. Moreover, the resulting mixed-race, light-skinned population of color,though born out of wedlock, was socially recognized as having higher status than that of African-born slaves. Unlike in the US, further admixtures of white blood could potentially equal the status of a light-skinned offspring of a Black slave to that of a pure White and finally culminate in manumission, which was much more common in Brazil. The "whitening opportunity" encouraged many imported Blacks to readily socialize with their White masters, hoping that their third or fourth generation offspring would become free. And unlike in the US, poor rural Whites were the most open to such interracial contacts. Top elite classes, however, have always resisted this process.

Nevertheless, Brazil still has racial issues to be solved. African-Brazilians still have less access to good education, health services and sanitation. In the southernmost states, where the white population largely outweighs the other ethnic groups, isolated neo-nazi groups proclaim their racial superiority among other races. All over the country, the press reports incidences of racism in daily situations (racism is considered a crime in Brazil). Inter-racial marriages still are not very common (the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics reports that one among four couples is inter-racial, but this piece of information considers black and mixed-race as separate groups - marriages among white and black, or even white and mixed-race people are still unusual) and in a country that was largely colonized by Mediterranean groups, which can have darker skin caucasian individuals, someone who had Indigenous or African roots, through marriages with caucasian people, could produce descendants that would be easily regarded as white. In fact, this was a way of social rising in the past. This has produced a lack of identity among mixed-race groups in Brazil, who would use many euphemistic terms to describe themselves, in order to hide their non-European roots, creating wide varieties of racial hierarchy between multi-ethnic peoples, which take into account caucasian traces, straight hair and other signs of white ascent. This doesn't happen normally in the United States, where the one-drop theory classifies as "black" everyone that has some degree of African heritage.

Many efforts have been taken by the Brazilian Government in order to improve African and Mixed-Race Brazilians' (which account almost half of Brazil's inhabitants) access to public higher education, creating quotas for African descendants, Indigenous descendants and poor people that do not fit into these groups in public universities. It is believed that their access to good-quality education will diminish the gap between Brazil's ethnic groups and help ethnic marginalized groups be more proud of their non-European roots.

Health

Like most developing countries, Brazil's most problematic disease is AIDS. This has resulted in the breaking of AIDS drug patents in order to minimise the health cost to the country's economy by offering free medication. The anti-AIDS brazilian program is recognized as one of the best ones of the world and was considerated by WHO (World Health Organization) a good model to be followed by other countries. [1]

Religion

About 74% of all Brazilians claim to be members of the Roman Catholic Church; most of the remaining 26% adhere to various Protestant faiths, Kardecism, Candomblé, Umbanda, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.

According to IBGE 2000 Census, these are the biggest religious denominations in Brazil (only listed those with more than a half million members):

Its Charismatic Renewal branch is fast growing; the Progressive Branch (Liberation Theology) and the Conservative branch are in decline. Only 15% of its membership attends the church regularly.
  • Assemblies of God (Assembléias de Deus): 8,418,140
General Convention of the Assemblies of God: 3.6 Million. Affiliated with the American Assemblies of God, Springfield, MO
National Convention of the Assemblies of God: 2.5 Million. A.k.a. Madureira Ministry of the Assemblies of God
Other independent Assemblies of God: 1,9 Million, such as Bethesda Assemblies of God
Brazilian Baptist Convention: 1,2 Million adherents. Affiliated to US Southern Baptists
National Baptist Convention: 1 Million. Charismatics Baptists
Independent Baptist Convention: 400,000. Scandinavian Baptists
Other Baptists: 400,000
  • Spiritist: 2,262,401
These includes Kardec Spiritualist; Afro-Brazilian Sincretists, New Age, etc, but with a much larger influence than their numbers
  • Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus): 2 Million. Neo-Pentecostal Movement.
  • Foursquare Gospel Church: 1,318,805. Classic Pentocostals in US, but second-wave pentecostals in Brazil.
Seventh-day Adventist Church: 900,000
Promise Adventist Church: 150,000. Indigenous Pentecostal Adventists.
Reform Seventh Day Adventist Church: 50,000
Other Adventists: 100,000
Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confission
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil
Other Lutherans
Presbyterian Church of Brazil: 450,000
Independent Presbyterian Church: 300,00
Congregationalists: 100,000
Other Calvinists:150,000
  • God is Love Pentecostal Church: 700,000. Divine Healing movement.
  • Independent Catholics: 600,000
Groups like Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church and many other small ones.

The non-religious people, Atheists and Agnostics, number about 7.3%.

Languages

Portuguese is the official language and spoken by the entire population. Spanish is understood in various degrees by most people. English and French are part of the official high school curriculum, but very few people achieve any usable degree of fluency in them.

Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas, giving it a distinct national culture separate from its Spanish-speaking neighbors.

Portuguese is the only language with full official status in Brazil; it is virtually the only language used in schools, newspapers, radio and TV, and for all business and administrative purposes.

However, many minority languages are spoken daily throughout the vast national territory of Brazil. Some of these languages are spoken by indigenous peoples. Others yet are spoken by people who are for the most part bilingual (i.e. speakers of Portuguese and English, French, German, and/or Italian, etc.).

Many of the indigenous people speak languages like: Mbyá-Guaraní (or simply Guaraní), Kaingang, Nadëb, Carajá, Caribe, Tucano, Arára, Terêna, Borôro, Apalaí, Canela and many others. Not all Amerindians desire to become part of the mainstream culture of Brazil. Even though minorities are what they are, that is minorities, cultural conflicts cannot be dismissed as insignificant or unimportant based what percentage of the national population they are.

Interestingly enough some of these minority languages recently have obtained local co-official status — e.g. Nheengatu, Tukano, and Baniwa in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas (2003).

The Brazilian language Língua Geral which is now almost extinct, at one time, until the late 1800s, was the common language used by a large number of indigenous, African, and African-descendant peoples throughout the coast of Brazil — it was spoken by the majority of the population in the land. It was proscribed by the Marquis of Pombal for its association with the Jesuit missions. Today, in the Amazon Basin, political campaigning is still printed in this now rare language.

Other languages such as German, Italian, Polish and Japanese are spoken in southern Brazil. There are whole regions in southern Brazil where people speak both Portuguese and one or more of these languages. For example, it is reported that more than 90% of the residents of the small city of Presidente Lucena, located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, speak Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, a Brazilian form of the Hunsrückisch German dialect (see this website).

Although they have been rapidly replaced by Portuguese in the last few decades — partly by a government decision to integrate immigrant populations —, today states like Rio Grande do Sul are trying to reverse that trend and Immigrant Languages such as German and Italian are being reintroduced into the curriculum again in communities where they originally thrived. Meanwhile, on the Argentine and Uruguayan border regions Brazilian students are being introduced (formally) to the Spanish language.

More and more people are realizing in Brazil that a person can master and carry more than one language throughout their lives. In other words, integration into mainstream society does not mean that one has to become monolingual. More and more the reasoning is that if languages are a human capital of great value to some, perhaps they should be considered valuable to one all.

Some immigrant communities in southern Brazil, chiefly the German and the Italian ones, have lasted long enough to develop distinctive dialects from their original European sources. For example, Brazilian German, Riograndenser Hunsrückisch or Hunsrückisch and Talian or Italiano Riograndense. These are not languages per se but distinct dialects (from their original European counterparts).

Other transplanted German dialects to this part of the world have not under gone the same level of changes. For example, the Austrian dialect spoken in Dreizehnlinden or Treze Tílias in the state of Santa Catarina; or the dialect of the Donauschwaben spoken in Entre Rios, in the state of Paraná; or the Pomeranian (Pommersch) dialect spoken in many different parts of southern Brazil (in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Espírito Santo, etc.). Plautdietsch is spoken by the descendants of Russian Mennonites.

A Japanese-language newspaper, the São Paulo Shinbun, is published in the city of São Paulo. There is a significant community of Japanese speakers in Paraná and Amazonas. Much smaller groups exist in Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul and other parts of Brazil.

Many Chinese, especially from Macau, speak a Portuguese creole, called Macaista, aside from Portuguese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Brazilians who hear it are surprised that it is a unique Portuguese creole.

In São Paulo, the German-Brazilian newspaper Brasil-Post has been published for over fifty years. The Livraria Alemã of Blumenau was a fixture in the city for a long time. There are many other media organizations throughout the land specializing either in church issues, music, language, etc. The German-Brazilian community in Brazil is estimated to be in the millions.

The Italian online newspaper La Rena offers Brazilian-Italian or Talian lessons.

There are many other non-Portuguese publications, bilingual web sites, radio and television programs throughout the country. For example, TV GALEGA from Blumenau shows German-language programming on their channel on a weekly basis.

The English-language daily Brazil Herald is directed mostly to tourists, foreign executives and expatriates.

Most major foreign newspapers can be obtained in larger Brazilian cities (Frankfurter Allgemeine; Le Monde; The New York Times; etc.)

Demographic Breakdown

Demographics of Brazil, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

Population

186,112,794
Note: Brazil took a count in August 2000, which reported a population of 169,799,170; that figure was about 3.3% lower than projections by the US Census Bureau, and is close to the implied underenumeration of 4.6% for the 1991 census; estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2005 est.). However, there is also a dramatic decrease in fertility rates since the 70's

Age structure

0-14 years: 26.1% (male 24,789,495/female 23,842,715)
15-64 years: 67.9% (male 62,669,392/female 63,719,631)
65 years and over: 6% (male 4,549,552/female 6,542,009) (2005 est.)

Median age

Total: 27.81 years
Male: 27.06 years
Female: 28.57 years (2005 est.)

Population growth rate

1.06% (2005 est.)

Birth rate

16.83 births/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Death rate

6.15 deaths/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Net migration rate

-0.03 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2005 est.)

Sex ratio

At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
Under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.7 male(s)/female
Total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2005 est.)

Infant mortality rate

Total: 29.61 deaths/1,000 live births
Male: 33.37 deaths/1,000 live births
Female: 25.66 deaths/1,000 live births (2005 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

Total population: 71.69 years
Male: 67.74 years
Female: 75.85 years (2005 est.)

Total fertility rate

1.93 children born/woman (2005 est.)

Nationality

Noun: Brazilian(s)
Adjective: Brazilian

Ethnic groups

The only relatively isolated minority ethnic groups in Brazil are various non-assimilated indigenous tribes, comprising less than 1% of the population, who live in officially delimited reservations and either avoid contact with "civilized" people, or constitute separate social and political communities.

The rest of the population can be considered a single "Brazilian" ethnic group, with highly varied racial types and backgrounds, but without clear ethnic sub-divisions. By physical type, a recent survey gives 55% "white", 38% "mixed", 6% "black", 1% "other". (However, these labels are poorly defined, and it is not known how they were determined for the survey.)

The ethnic origin of the Brazilians can be traced to:

Religions

Roman Catholic (nominal) 80%; most of the other 20% belong to Protestant denominations, Kardecism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Candomblé and Umbanda.

Literacy

Definition: age 15 and over can read and write
Total population: 86.4%
Male: 86.1%
Female: 86.6% (2003 est.)

See also

References

Template:CIA WFB 2005

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