Abstract

This paper aims to consider and analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on work in Brazil. The difficult times Brazil has been facing have deepened the precarization experienced by a significant number of citizens in the work world and exposed the structural inequalities of the Brazilian society. We begin by presenting a contextualization of the country in terms of general indicators (political and social) and highlighting the development of Brazil’s work relations. We then analyze secondary data (from official sources), showing even more profound social inequalities in the work world in pandemic times, including those referring to recent reformist policies, with strong neoliberal inspiration in Brazil. Finally, we discuss the above-mentioned profound inequalities, especially those related to the increasingly weaker social protection networks and labor rights in Brazilian society.

Highlights

  • Evidence was sought for two related factors : (1) during the pandemic, social inequalities have increased in the country ; (2) the decrease in occupation levels in the country was associated with the increased precariousness of structurally vulnerable population subgroups

  • The Covid-19 pandemic caused a significant setback in the Brazilian economy but, more importantly, it led to the consolidation of inequalities and reinforced the precarization of vulnerable workers

  • 64 The Covid-19 pandemic has made intensified inequality in the country, reinforcing the country’s image as a ‘land of contrasts,’ according to Roger Bastide. Such contrasts can be seen in the profound inequalities that link, for instance, level of education, income, and age group to issues most closely related to work, the occupation levels

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Summary

A methodological note

10 The data choice to be analyzed has both advantages and limitations : we opted for a large-scope, strictly descriptive quantitative cutout. This allowed us to identify how the pandemic has affected several labor-related characteristics of Brazil’s more vulnerable populations, such as occupation and informal work relationships. These dimensions were associated with people’s fundamental features in their structural inequalities, such as age, income, education, and race/ethnicity, to investigate the pandemic’s impacts on these population groups. The Conclusion presents reflections on the research’s primary results, focusing on data analysis involving the most vulnerable groups of the Brazilian population. Potential scenarios in the Brazilian world of work in the still uncertain future postpandemic points in time are mentioned

Social and political dimensions of Brazilian society
The historical-institutional legacies of labor in Brazil
A note on the persistence of inequalities in contemporary Brazil
Aspects of the labor market in Brazil
Impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on work – inequality and “the vulnerable”
Findings
Conclusion

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