Opinion – Michael França: Racial Balance Sheet Index

Last week, the Ifer (Racial Balance Sheet Index) update came out, and the results are worrying. The education component was the only one to show progress in recent decades. However, the pace of inclusion in higher education has slowed down in recent times.

Despite graduating blacks and people from disadvantaged backgrounds like never before in history, the racial imbalance between the top 10% of each state has remained high and relatively constant over time. Although initially low, attention is also drawn to the progressive deterioration in the component of the index that measures the racial imbalance in longevity.

Ifer was developed in 2021, in a partnership between Sheet and Insper’s Racial Studies Nucleus. The researchers Alysson Portella and Sergio Firpo participated with me in its construction, who is also a columnist for Sheet🇧🇷 Led by journalist Érica Fraga, the newspaper’s project entitled “The color of inequality in Brazil” contributed to bringing new perspectives to the Brazilian debate on the subject.

The index represents a way of mapping advances and setbacks in racial inequality considering the regional context and the population distribution of each location. With this, we can learn where we are evolving and identify the regions, as well as the socioeconomic variables where we will need to focus more effort in promoting equity.

In education, the opening of several new public universities in recent decades and programs such as ProUni, Fies and the Quota Law have allowed for a profound advance in inclusion in higher education. However, little progress has been made in reducing the gap in school performance between rich and poor, white and black, in basic education. In addition, the decrease in student permanence aid in higher education and the lack of adjustment in scholarships represent channels that lead to the exclusion of the most disadvantaged.

Providing good training for individuals, regardless of their social class and race, is a basic lesson for the development of any country, and Brazil has failed miserably in this throughout its history. However, education alone will not be able to annihilate the deep social divide that separates the different groups in our society.

The wealth structure of families affects the set of decisions individuals make throughout their lives and the formation of contact and support networks. Part of the return in the labor market is explained by factors that are beyond the individual’s control, such as, for example, place of birth, gender and skin tone.

In this context, deeper reforms in the functioning of the labor market must be carried out so that the results achieved in people’s lives start to have greater correspondence with individual effort. Furthermore, defending the promotion of greater social justice, without being willing to change the tax structure and the transmission of inheritance, is, at the very least, hypocrisy.

Finally, differences in experiences between racial groups impact longevity. The methodology used in Ifer suggests a worsening in this sense. Although relatively low in the past, the racial imbalance in aging is progressively increasing.

Blacks and the poor are dying more and more victims not only of violence but also due to the ineffectiveness of the State. Advances in basic sanitation, access to quality health and in the discussion of drug policies are paths to be followed.

The text is a tribute to the song “É Quero Dar um Jeito, meu Amigo”, by Erasmo Carlos and Roberto Carlos, performed by Erasmo Carlos.