by Thomas E. Foss

Created on: August 01, 2008   Last Updated: November 09, 2010

Brazil is one of the countries in the world where the differences between those who are rich and those who are poor, are the largest. The richest 10 percent of Brazilians receive 42 percent of the nation’s income, while the poorest 10 percent receive less than 1,2 percent. Roughly one third of the country’s population is considered poor while the extremely poor make up 13 percent.This situation has been the subject of a heated debate in Brazil the last ten years and efforts have been made to reduce the problems relating to poverty.

While poverty in Brazil is perhaps primarily associated with the favelas visible in the country’s metropolitan areas, poverty is in reality a much broader issue. As many as 22,6 percent or 35 million Brazilians live below the poverty line. Over half of these live in urban areas and of these, half do not have canalized water. 68 percent has no garbage collection, 25 percent lack electricity and 78 percent do not have proper sewage connections or septic tanks. Although the health-effects of poverty in Brazil have not been sufficiently studied, the conclusion must nevertheless be that the health effects of living under these circumstances are in fact negative.

While improvements in national living standards has been a primary issue the last decade – for example with a program launched by President Lula to eradicate hunger, long-term strategies to eradicate the actual problems causing poverty has also been discussed and outlined. These discussions has been centered on a few fundamental problems:

1)      The degree of schooling affects the degree of poverty. In 74 percent of the poor households, the head of the household has less than four years of schooling.

2)      The size of a family affects housholds. As the amount of dependents in the household increases, so does poverty rates.

3)      The type of available jobs at hand affects poverty rates. Those Brazilians who are unemployed,self employed and informally employed are more likely to be poor than those who are not. Self-employment is – as is easy to see in Brazil – often an effect of the lack of available jobs. Of self-employed Brazilians, only 20% actually own their own shops and the rest operate out of their homes, vehicles or in public spaces.

The responses to these problems are threefold, with the highest emphasis being on the first:

1)      The level of education in poor areas must

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