Back to the past: gains and losses in Brazilian society

Abstract

During the first 15 years of the twenty-first century, Brazil’s economic growth and public policies were in the center of the debate on the growing “new middle class.” This new middle class is defined by people’s household income between the upper 10th percentile and the median (Neri, A Nova Classe Média, 2008). Although there has been a consensus about the increase in consumption and the improvement of living conditions for a significant proportion of the population, there is less agreement about the decline in inequality and the change in class distribution. Previous work was directed at challenging the very idea that Brazil had become a middle-class country during the first decade of this century, basically weighting class distribution against income distribution. In this article, we aim to step into the income distribution debate using six income groups as proportions of the median household per-capita income. Our data source is the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-IBGE/Brazil) in 2001, 2008, and 2015. We analyze groups’ income distribution and characteristics using multinomial logistic models to take into account the effects of socioeconomic variables. We argue that there is significant stability in groups’ income structure during the period, revealing their resistance to inequalities (similar to the findings in the works of Piketty and Souza). We also indicate that the odds of being included in the upper-income categories are quite unequal, considering socioeconomic variables. Finally, we point out that the gains observed from 2001 to 2008 had faded by 2015 when the odds of being included in the upper-income categories were remarkably similar to those of 2001.