705,000 white men earn more than all 33 million black women

At 60, Graziela Pereira cannot think about quitting work. She has been handing out pamphlets in downtown Curitiba (PR) since 2019, and she does not complain about the sun or the heat, she only asks permission to anyone who crosses the square in a hurry and offers a card to buy gold and jewelry. “When a lot of people accept, I earn my day,” she says.

A ten-year-old granddaughter depends on the money that Graziela earns working eight hours a day. Unable to count on the help of the child’s parents, she, who has already worked in offices, stores and restaurants, finds strength to be on the streets for another day. “People’s lives are always uncertain, but I prefer to thank you for having my work.”

Realities like hers help illustrate an alarming fact in the country: in Brazil, the top of the income pyramid has color and gender. The 705,000 white men who make up the richest 1% in the country and represent 0.56% of the adult population have 15.3% of all income, a larger share than all adult black women combined.

They, which total 32.7 million people and make up 26% of the adult population, hold only 14.3% of the national income, according to an exclusive survey by Made/USP (Research Center in Macroeconomics of Inequalities, University of São Paulo) .

The study is based on data from the most recent POF (Family Budget Survey), 2017 and 2018, from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), and from the Income Tax (Income Tax of Individuals) Declaration Federal.

“The inequality of opportunities that mainly affects black women is reproduced with each generation and forms a very rigid structure”, says Luiza Nassif Pires, a researcher at Made and at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, in the United States.

She adds that, although the POF data provide a picture of four years ago, the most recent editions of the Continuous National Household Survey (PNAD), also by the IBGE, reinforce that black women left the workforce in greater numbers. than other profiles of workers and that this higher dropout will be reflected in an increase in inequality in the future.

The researcher recalls that the pandemic served to concentrate even more income and increased gender and racial inequality. Although emergency aid has managed to temporarily reduce this inequity, while it was R$600 and for a larger number of people, the subsequent reduction in the benefit was no longer enough to reduce inequality, says Luiza.

“The effect of the pandemic tends to take longer to wear off. The unemployment rate is now starting to fall first for white men, while the participation rate of black women in the market remains at a disadvantage.”

The Made researchers compared income (the flow of money that comes in every year), according to race and gender. A further investigation by the group must also compare the wealth (the wealth that is accumulated) of Brazilians under the same criteria.

LABOR MARKET REINFORCES INEQUALITIES

Among the main reasons for the difference in women’s pay, Luiza highlights the type of job, the prejudice against work capacity and discontinuity, which would lead to lower pensions and lower income.

“The very way in which the division takes place tends to direct women to work with lower incomes, since these are the majority in the tertiary sector, which is expanding in Brazil and with high levels of precariousness and informality, says the researcher.

This reality makes women occupy increasingly precarious jobs, with fewer rights and lower wages. She also highlights that, when looking at the base of the pyramid where the poorest 10% are, it is possible to see the importance of Bolsa Família, which ended recently after 18 years.

“Without the program, the concentration could be even worse, and this reveals the need to expand the cash transfer programs without a deadline to end.”

2020 data show that black women represent 27% of the population and occupy 50% of informal jobs. In domestic work, they account for 74% of those in informal jobs, recalls Maitê Gauto, Programs and Incidence Manager at Oxfam Brasil.

“This is a highly vulnerable group, without labor guarantees or social protection. During the pandemic, informal and domestic groups were the most affected groups, either because they were dismissed from work or because of the distancing measures that led to a drop in income.”

When considering white Brazilians who are in the top 10% of the pyramid (both men and women), they represent 6.9% of the total population, but keep 41.6% of the total income, while all black people , which are 53.8% of the population, earn 35% of the total income, according to Made.

Furthermore, seven out of ten poorest Brazilians are black. They represent 70% of the poorest tenth of the population, ie the 10% with the lowest incomes.

The data also show that white adults who make up the top 10% — just over 8.6 million people — keep 41.6% of all income. This amount is more than seven percentage points higher than the income of all black adults (35%), which represents more than 67.7 million people.