Inequalities

Inequalities in Brazil

Guest Editor: Ricardo Antunes (University of Campinas) 

Adjunt Guest Editors: Ricardo Festi (University of Brasilia); Marco Gonsales (University of Campinas); Luci Praun (Federal University of Acre/University of Campinas); Murillo van der Laan (University of Campinas)

Brazil has historically been marked by deep inequalities. These must be analysed in light of the country’s colonial past, which introduced slave labour through the forced capture and trafficking of people from the African continent. 

Although slave labour was abolished before the early-twentieth century industrialisation of Brazil – albeit in a peripheral and dependent condition within the world market – the black population was largely excluded from nascent industrialisation. While the Brazilian ruling class welcomed white immigrant labour, mainly from Europe and Japan, it created restrictive labour legislation that excluded black people, rural workers, domestic workers and various other categories of waged labour, condemning them to undeclared work, precarity, and unemployment. 

This situation reveals a lot about the past, demonstrating the enormous social inequalities that still exist – and have even increased – today. It also shows how the exploitation of labour is one of the fundamental bases of the structural reproduction of inequality. From its beginnings, the Brazilian working class has experienced high rates of unemployment, exploitation, precarisation, and systematic avoidance of labour rights, which still influences labour relations. 

In the last trimester of 2024, the average rate of unemployment in Brazil was 6.2% (IBGE, 2025), however this figure contains internal differences that reflect the various forms of inequality and precarious work existing in the country. While for men the unemployment rate was 5.1%, among women it was 7.6%, and while for white people it was 4.9%, for black people it was 7.5% and for brown people it was 7.0%. The IBGE data also reveals that of a total of 103 million workers, 39.5 million did not have a work contract. 

There are also continued and deepening territorial inequalities. While in the city the poorest strata of the population are relegated to the worst and most precarious living conditions, in the rural areas many families live in extreme poverty and forms of work analogous to slavery still exist. In 2023, due to extreme levels of poverty and destitution, around 51% of rural inhabitants lived in housing provided by social programmes, while in urban areas the figure was 24.5% (IBGE, 2024). 

Furthermore, those living in poverty include a significant number of black women (adult and young) whose principal employment is domestic work, which is mainly informal and badly paid, with long and demanding working hours (DIEESE, 2023). 

It is in this context, constantly marked by working class struggle, that the country has undergone a process of the permanent restructuring of capital and has seen the introduction of neoliberal policies. Beginning in the 1990s, this dynamic reached new levels of intensity in the first decades of the 21st century with the advent and expansion of the platform economy – so-called Big Tech – which exploits countries in the Global South – in particular Brazil – in order to intensify labour exploitation, further exacerbating inequalities. These traits, typical of countries that are dependent and subordinate with capitalism, were further brought to light by the advance of agribusiness, a sector that is enriched through the use of monoculture for exportation and progressive deforestation. Another significant factor is the recent modification of Brazilian labour law,  which has eliminated various rights granted in the 1943 Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho. In the 2017 Reforma Trabalhista the prevalence of negotiation over the law (prevalência do negociado sobre o legislado) was introduced, which, amongst other things, allowed for a decrease in breaks during working time, increased the diversification of employment contracts (e.g. so that they also include contract for intermittent labour), and led to an exponential growth in outsourcing and subcontracting. 

All of these elements indicate that Brazil, as part of the Global South, acts as an important laboratory for global corporations, which maintain and further deepen the enormous inequalities historically present in the country. This takes place within a context of an international division of labour in which deindustrialisation, the decline in the number of industrial workers, the expansion of the service industry, and the increase in the info-proletariat have created a new morphology of the Brazilian working class – one of the multiple and important transformations in the Brazilian class structure. 

This issue of Inequalities aims to collect together articles that offer a thorough analysis of the socioeconomic inequalities in Brazil from multiple perspectives. We encourage articles that – recognising social stratifications in terms of  class, gender, and race – explore issues of: income and wealth inequality; labour inequality (for example, precarisation and inequalities in working conditions); inequalities in terms of health, housing, and education; territorial inequalities and regional disparities; and working class struggles against inequalities. 

All contributions must be in English and must be sent in by 15th December 2025. The maximum length of contributions in 40,000 characters (spaces and bibliography included).

Those who want to can send the editorial board an abstract in order to have feedback. It must include the title of the article and an abstract of 300 words, must be sent by 31st May 2025.