Half the nation, a hundred million citizens strong
Source: www.economist.co.uk
Sep 11th, 2008 (Adapted)
It remains hard to define, and
attempts to do so often seem arbitrary. But in Brazil, the middle class
describes those with a job in the formal economy, access to credit and
ownership of a car or motorbike. According to the Fundação Getúlio
Vargas (FGV), a research institute, this means households with a monthly
income ranging from 1,064 reais ($600) to 4,561 reais. Since 2002,
according to FGV, the proportion of the population that fits this
description has increased from 44% to 52%. Brazil, previously notorious
for its extremes, is now a middle-class country.
This social climbing is a feature mainly of the country's cities,
reversing two decades of stagnation that began at the start of the
1980s. Marcelo Neri of FGV suggests two factors behind the change. The
first is education. The quality of teaching in Brazil's schools may
still be poor, but those aged 15-21 now spend on average just over three
more years studying than their counterparts did in the early 1990s.
The second is a migration of jobs from the informal "black" economy to
the formal economy. The rate of formal job creation is accelerating,
with 40% more created in the year to this July than in the previous 12
months, which itself set a record. Together with cash transfers to poor
families, this helps to explain why − in contrast with economic and
social development in India or China − as Brazil's middle class has
grown, so the country's income inequality has lessened.
According to paragraph 3, Brazil's income inequality has lessened. Therefore, it has
