Urban Man

Since the last census in 1991, the population of Brazil has increased
by 1.6 percent, to total 169,544,433 people.
The total population of Brazil increased 22.7 million in relation
to the 1991 census—over 3 million more than the IBGE predicted.
There are increasingly more women than men because
the mortality rates for women is decreasing at a faster rate
with the better medical technology. And in the Southeast
90.5 percent of the population lives in cities.

Kim Richardson

The population of Brazil has, since the 1991 census, increased by 1.6 percent to total almost 170 million persons. Of this number, 81.2 percent live in cities, compared to a Latin American total of 75 percent and a world total of 46 percent. While Brazilian urbanization has historically been the byproduct of industrialization in the cities, the rates of urbanization seem to have slowed. What is the dispersal of population in Brazil and why has there been a deceleration of urbanization in Brazil? Why do women generally outnumber men in urban—but not rural—areas?

By looking at the 2000 Census and the preliminary statistics released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas, or IBGE), we find that urbanization has slowed because of a combination of diminished family sizes and a rise in rural jobs not directly tied to agriculture. We also see that because jobs are geared towards men in the countryside, women migrate in larger numbers to the cities, a place where the mortality rate is higher for men due to violence and accidents in the workplace. By analyzing these numbers—Brazil's population growth and tendencies (including male to female rations), we can better understand the demographic future of Brazil and her place in the world.

Total Population:

Since the last census in 1991, the population of Brazil has increased by 1.6 percent, to total 169,544,433 people. This means that in the last nine years, there has been a population increase of 22,718,968 in the country. As a whole, Latin America and the Caribbean, in 1999, made up 8.5 percent of the world population. The total demographic growth in Brazil for the past four decades are as follows:

1960s 2.8 percent

1970s 2.4 percent

1980s 1.9 percent

1990s 1.6 percent

Thus a slowing of urbanization can be seen.

In the 2000 Census, the North is the region which had the largest percentage of increase—2.9 percent annually. The following is the average increase by region:

North 2.9 percent

Southeast 1.6 percent

Northeast 1.3 percent

South 1.4 percent

Center-West 2.4 percent

Thus, according to the IBGE, the Northeast increased by the lowest percentage due to lower birth rates and migration to other cities, and the South was subsequently small because it lost so many people to other regions. The growth of the Center-West, also high, was mainly the product of growth in the periphery cities.

The states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro increased their population mainly in the interior, the percentage of which being greater than that of their respective state capitals. In the other Brazilian states, the opposite is true; the capitals had a population increase above that of their state averages. These demographic changes reflect a process of decentralization of economic activities.

The urban population is 81.2 percent of Brazil. This is in comparison to 75 percent in Latin American and 46 percent in the world. What this means, is that Brazil is one of the most urbanized countries in the world. It was in 1970 that the IBGE registered, for the first time, more people in urban than rural areas. This decade was marked by the civil construction boom and industrialization. While the population concentration in the cities has continued to grow—it was 75.6 percent ten years ago—there still persists differences in the demographic distribution of geographic regions; while in the Southeast 90.5 percent of the population lives in cities, in the North only 69.7 percent do and the Northeast this is only 69 percent.

Gender Ratios:

In Brazil, there are predominantly more women than men, with an average of 96.87 men for every 100 women, or 86,120,890 women (50.8 percent of the population) versus 74,340,353 in 1991 (50.7 percent of the population). What this means, is that there are 2.7 million more women than men in Brazil. This is in comparison to 1991 where there were 97.5 men for every 100 women and 1980 when there were 98.74 men for every 100 women. There are, then, increasingly more women than men in the country as a whole.

The reason for the increasing numbers of women (in comparison to men), according to Alícia Bercovich, the coordinator of the 2000 Census, is because the mortality rates for women is decreasing at a faster rate with the better medical technology. But it is more than this; the numbers of women versus men is in direct correlation to the urban/rural population in Brazil. In rural areas there are more men than women, while in urban areas the opposite is the case. Thus since Brazil is 81.2 percent urban, there are and should be more women than men in the nation as a whole.

In the North region, where there are more rural areas than urban, for every 100 women there are 116 men. In the Central-West, however, there are 99.38 men for every 100 women, thus demonstrating the urbanization process. According to the IBGE Coordinator, this is because of the nature of the rural work, which requires more physical force. While women can migrate to the cities and often work in the service sectors in the more urban areas, men tend to remain more in the rural areas. In the North region, then, since it is more rural, claims more men than women.

Novo Progresso, in the south of Pará, is the city with the most number of men compared to women in the country. According to IBGE, there are 14,984 men and 10,001 women. This shows how women do not have the motivation to remain in the countryside—there is no diversion, work, or other attractions, while men are more likely to succeed in finding employment. The largest part of the male population in the city is outside the city limits working in the mines or lumber mills. "The people that arrive here soon leave, returning when the rains come and it is difficult to work in the forest," one resident stated. Another example is in the state of Mato Grosso, where it is more rural, and hence there are more than 68,986 more men than women

In contrast, the state that is the most urbanized, São Paulo, has the largest proportion of women in the nation. One example is Águas de São Pedro, where 54.47 percent of the population are women. In the city of São Paulo alone there are 489,628 more women than men. In the city of Recife (the capital with the most women), for every 100 women there are 86 men.

In the city of Rio de Janeiro, there are 362,020 more women than men, or 88.35 men to every 100 women. In the state as a whole, there are 92.07 men to every 100 women, the reason being that in the capital, life expectancy for women is greater while many men die of accidents resulting from violence. To expound on this more, in the urban areas of Rio, there is an average of 91 men for every 100 women, while in the rural areas there are 108 men for every 100 women. Thus, in the northern parts of Rio where it is more rural there are more men than women.

In sum, women to men ratios in Brazil are in direct proportion to urban to rural ratios; in the rural areas there are more men and in the urban areas there are more women. Thus, since Brazil is more urban than rural (81.2 percent more), there should be, and are, more women than men.

Demography and Urbanization:

The percentage of the urban population (versus rural) has increased from 75.6 percent in 1991 to 81.2 percent, according to the 2000 Census. Of the 169.5 million Brazilians, 40.3 million (23.81 percent) live in the capitals. A fourth of these, or 10,406,166 people, live in the largest city in the country, São Paulo. (The state of São Paulo, incidentally, has 36.9 million people, or 21.8 percent of the Brazilian population). In comparison, the smallest city in the nation is also in São Paulo; Borá, with 795 residents.

According to Rosana Baeninger, researcher of the Center for Population Studies at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), the country today is in the third cycle of urbanization marked by intra-regional movements. In other words, people establish themselves in small cities and leave the region as they receive offers of work. The first cycle began in the 1970s, marked by migrations from the North and Northeast, principally in the direction of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. During this period, 30 million Brazilians migrated. In the second wave, these migrants went to medium-sized cities and the Southeast and, between 1980 and the beginning of the 1990s, received almost 10 million migrants. In the last 10 years, the migrants went from cities of the same region or the same state.

Today, (the third cycle), the movements that predominate are intra-regional movements, between cities of regions, with economic vocations well established. There has been a redistribution of the population for smaller cities and these cities can only be understood by their vocations in the context of the region that they belong to. One example is Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo. Even though it has great economic strength, it did not achieve one million inhabitants in the 2000 census because its neighbor cities, such as Sumaré and Paulínia, grew at more accelerated rates.

As previously stated, 90.5 percent of the population of the Southeast region lives in cities while in the North and Northeast it is less than 70 percent. These numbers, however, are misleading. Urban areas, according to the IBGE, are determined by city laws which determine city boundaries. Did urban growth, then, increase because the cities increased their boundaries, or did the boundaries remain the same and the populations within them grow? According to Bernardete Waldvogel, the coordinator of the area of population studies of Seade, there are many people living in urban areas that are officially still rural because the city has not updated the definition of its urban perimeters.

The following is a comparison of the inhabitants living in urban cities in the western hemisphere:

United States 80 percent

Argentina 90 percent

Uruguay 91 percent

Paraguay 56 percent

Brazil 81.2 percent

However, the United States and Argentina determine urbanity based on areas with a population of 2,500 or more, while the last three countries—Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, determine urbanity legislatively (by municipal legislations). For these last three countries, then, determining urban population is not as defined as simple as in the United States or Argentina.

One reason for the increased rate of urbanization in Brazil is a result of increased industrialization. For example, the city of Porto Real has grown at a rate of 5.12 percent, which accompanied the installation of the Peugeot factory. Porto Real's neighbor city, Resende, also had increased immigration due to the installation of the Volkswagen factory. Thus instead of rural migration to the capital cities, laborers are now tending to remain in the smaller cities where they can find work with this new industrial boom.

Although many Brazilians are leaving the countryside for the cities to work, the urban growth is also the result of the increase in urban perimeters as rural areas are increasingly incorporated into the city. People that live in rural areas don't necessarily work in agriculture, since the 1990s have epitomized the fall of agricultural employment. However, those that live in rural areas are now often working in other areas such as rural tourism (rural vacation hotels, condos, and domestic work in country estates).

In addition, many rural dwellers are now commuting to the cities to work. According to Romualdo Rezende, the head of the Division of Research of the state of Rio de Janeiro, "We are observing a tendency for concentration along the coasts, principally of retired people that leave the capital and of people that come to these areas with the possibility of economic growth through tourism."

The frantic migration ceased with the increase in non-agricultural activities in the Interior and with the aging of the inhabitants of the rural zones. Brazil is still, however, one of the most urban countries in the world, although the rates of increased urbanization have slowed. And, because the urban areas are determined by boundaries rather than actual population, the total urban population may or may not actually be 81.2 percent.

Brasília and the Center-West:

Since the 1970s, there has been a decentralization of migration with the increase of industrialization projects. The supreme example is the Center-West region. Between the 1940s and 1960s, the region was an expansion of small ownerships involved in the growing of coffee. According to IBGE technicians, migrations to the Central-West in the last few decades were motivated by the opening up of new agricultural areas in states such as Mato Grosso and Goiás. This has diminished lately, and what is bringing immigrations in now is Brasília. Since 1991, the city has increased 2.7 percent per year, more than the regional average.

Part of the migration to the Federal District can be accredited to the donation of urban lots to the lower classes that has been accumulating momentum in the 1990s. Today there is a new type of people migrating to the Center-West: qualified people that transfer from other regions of the country for the large and medium urban centers, according to the sociologist Aspásia Camargo. This is unique to the Center-West region, since in the rest of Brazil, immigration tends to be intra-, rather than inter-regional. Since 1991, there has been a 2.4 percent increase in population in the Federal District, or 42,000 inhabitants (the second largest increase in the country).

The four cities from the Federal District that grew the most from 1991 to 2000 were:

1. Recanto das Emas (51.88 percent) to total today 92,996 inhabitants.

2. Riacho Fundo (54.96 percent) to total today 41,378 inhabitants.

3. Santa Maria (24.32 percent) to total today 98,228 inhabitants.

4. São Sebastião (15.56 percent) to total today 60,000 inhabitants.

What does this all mean? That each year Recanto das Emas, for example, grew a little over one-half in relation to the number of inhabitants the year before. Thus this city grew from 2,239 inhabitants in 1991 to 92,996 in 2000.

These cities, demographer Ana Maria Nogales of the Department of Statistics of the University of Brasília stated, came about due to the governments' solution to the problems of invasion (squatters). In these cities, then, the growth was not spontaneous, but was directed by the government. They have grown up as bedroom communities, with only small, basic-necessity businesses (such as small bars and neighborhood bakeries) with the inhabitants traveling to the Plano Piloto to work. The Plano Piloto, the administrative region of Brasília, "grew" at an annual percentage of 1 percent. In other words, the Plano was reduced from 213,083 in 1991 to 196,691 inhabitants in 2000. Why is this? According to Ana Maria, this is because there have been relatively low numbers of births in the Plano Piloto and the middle classes that marry cannot find a place for their new families to live. So they go to neighboring cities, such as (and especially) Sobradinho, the city that, in growth, is the sixth largest growing in the last decade (an average growth rate of 5.25 percent to equal 128,682 inhabitants today).

Brasília, where 196,600 inhabitants of the Federal District live, was not on the list of the 10 administrative regions that had the largest population increases from 1991-2000. Brasília, in the last decade, had a growth of 0.89 percent—it lost inhabitants to the satellite cities which grew at 3.25 percent annually. Recanto das Emas, a city-satellite of Brasília, more than doubled its population, registering the largest increase of all the Federal District—52.88 percent.

The Southeast:

Beginning in the 1940s when a mere 30 percent of the population of Brazil was considered urban, there began a gradual increase in urbanization, exacerbated in the 1950s with the development of the auto industry in São Paulo. This attracted people from rural areas, principally from the north of Minas Gerais and the Northeast. Today, however, there is a change; the rural population increase is a world tendency. Family workers are diversifying—some still work in agriculture and others choose urban occupations. In São Paulo, the number of rural workers has increased 0.78 percent in the last 9 years after 30 years of decrease.

In addition, the facts show decentralization in population growth, although this doesn't mean that the larger cities are not overflowing or that migration between the states has stopped. What this means, is that in the cities such as São Paulo and Rio that traditionally attract waves of immigrants from other regions, demonstrate a smaller growth rate throughout the 1990s (São Paulo at 0.85 percent and Rio at 0.73 percent). The expansion rate of these two largest Brazilian cities is lower than that of their states—this means that it is largely the interior cities of these states that are responsible for their states' population growth.

Of the state of São Paulo, the ten most populous cities hold 44.37 percent of the state population, or 16 million people. Of course, these five form part of the São Paulo city region (São Paulo, Guarulhos, São Bernardo do Campo, Osasco, and Santo André), which together make up 28.15 percent of the state population. But the ten cities that grew the most were small and medium-sized cities. For example, Bertioga grew to 30,900 inhabitants with an average growth of 11.76 percent per year. And six of the cities increased in population due to the tourism industry and two (Porto Real and Itatiaia) because of new automobile industries.

São Paulo:

According to the 2000 Census, the state of São Paulo has 5.4 million more inhabitants than in 1991 and three times more than in 1960. In the 1980s, the state (SP) received 3 million migrants, principally from the North and Northeast. In the last decade, one million people arrived in São Paulo while 600,000 left. Today the state has 36,966,527 inhabitants.

With 21.8 percent of the nation's population, São Paulo not only continues to be the largest and most urban of the Brazilian states, but also has a growth rate higher than the national average (1.78 percent compared to the nation's 1.6 percent). From 1996 to the present, however, the state growth rate has fallen. The city of São Paulo has grown less in his last decade than in previous decades—1.85 percent compared to 2.56 percent in the 1980s and 4.51 percent in the 1970s. The degree of urbanization in the state has thus increased 17.79 percent in the last 9 years to equal a total of five million people.

In 1991, São Paulo was 92.80 percent urban; in 2000 it is 93.41 percent and continues as the most urban of the Brazilian states. According to IBGE, there are two reasons for the increase in urbanization of the state—industrialization and better transportation. (The state spent $10.7 billion on industrialization in the last six years).

The rural population in São Paulo is increasing—0.78 percent per year in the last nine years, while the three previous censuses showed between _2.01 percent and _3.10 percent reduction per year. This 0.78 percent increase shows that people are still leaving the rural areas, although less than before. In the state of São Paulo, the population growth transferred progressively from large to small cities. In the last few years, the population of São Paulo has grown more in the outer peripheries where there does not exist an adequate infrastructure. The more central areas, in contrast, lost dwellers. Indeed, São Paulo is a city which has a population larger than that of most states, which a population of 10,406,166. In fact, there are only four states in the entire country with populations larger than this city:

1. Bahia (13,066,764)

2. Minas Gerais (17,835,488)

3. Rio de Janeiro (14,367,225)

4. São Paulo (36,966,527)

However, although the city of São Paulo is demographically enormous, it, as well as Rio de Janeiro, have shown the least average in increase of the capitals. (0.85 percent and 0.75 percent increase respectively). Their growth also remained below their states' average. Thus it is the cities in the interior of these states that are responsible for the population growth. According to analyst Luiz Antônio Oliveira, head of the Department of Population and Social Indicators of the IBGE, the reason for this is that, as a reality, São Paulo has nowhere else to grow and rural areas are invaded by the city. Thus while São Paulo grew 6 percent since 1996, it is increasing in population badly. For example, it has grown more in Anhangüera (in the West Zone) and less in Campo Belo (in the South Zone). Thus this shows that the city is increasing (in population) the most where there is not adequate infrastructure. São Paulo, then, has grown mostly in the peripheries where infrastructure is weak.

In addition, according to professor José Roberto Graziano, during the month of September of this year, each five people that lived in rural areas in the state of São Paulo, only two were working in agriculture in 1990, which shows this change. The service sector is one of the principle explanations for the increase in the rural population.

What is new is that the state population growth is transferring from the largest cities to the smallest and medium-sized ones. The population of São Paulo, the third largest city in the world, increased at 1.41 percent annually. São Paulo has, today, 6 percent more inhabitants than in 1996 (when there were 9,839,066 inhabitants in the city compared to today's 10 ½ million). It is also growing the most where there does not exist adequate infrastructure and people are moving out of the central areas. The former municipal secretary of habitation Ermínia Maricato stated that "The city is growing in a perverse way," with the central areas losing population—bairros (neighborhoods) such as Pari, Brás, Sé, and Barra Funda.

Rio de Janeiro:

In the last nine years, the population of the state of Rio de Janeiro has increased by 1.5 million (1,559,519). IBGE has noticed that the rural exodus has diminished and the coastal population has increased—the urban growth in Rio has been 1.39 percent. The state of Rio de Janeiro has the largest degree of urbanization in the country—96 percent. In the rural areas, the number of domiciles has fallen from 608,065 to 569,056, the smallest percentage of decrease since the decade of the 1960s (0.74 percent currently compared to 3.73 percent in the 1991 census). The reason for this, according to Romualdo Rezende, the head of the Division of Research of the state of Rio de Janeiro, is due to the industrialization and economic growth in the interior of the state.

Traditionally, Rio has a negative migration average, meaning more people leave the state than arrive. The Census 2000, however, shows a change in this. The ten most populous cities in Rio (in 2000) claimed 10 million people, or 74.5 percent of the state population. (The capital claims 40.72 percent of the state's population).

The augment in Rio's population is a result of economic expansion—of the 10 cities that grew the most in the state, two are situated in Bacia de Campos (Rio das Ostras & Casemiro de Abreu), which thrives off the petroleum boom. The population of the state of Rio grew 12 percent in nine years thanks to the recuperation of the state's economy, with the development of the tourist and petroleum sectors as well as the arrival of new industries. The number of inhabitants grew from 12,807,706 in 1991 to 14,367,225 this year.

However, although these numbers may seem high, Rio de Janeiro is the state that grew the least. It achieved 14,367,225, 1.30 percent annual increase. From 1980-1991, the increase was 1.15 percent per year. The population of the city of Rio de Janeiro has increased only 1.3 percent annually while the nation has increased 1.6 percent. The reason for this is that Rio has a low fertility rate, with 2.1 children per woman average. (Incidentally, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, there are 88.35 men to 100 women, compared to the state average of 92.07 men to 100 women). Because of the low birth rate in Rio, then, the population growth rate is expected to stagnate in the next twenty or thirty years.

North, Northeast, and South:

As has been stated, the capitals of the Northeast and North have growth more than the average of that of their respective states. The North region had the largest population growth of the decade—an annual average of 2.9 percent. The Northeast (1.3 percent), the South (1.4 percent) and the Southeast (1.6 percent) had the smallest annual growth rates. But 16 other states, mostly in the North and Northeast, have capitals which show growth rates much larger than their state averages.

The South, much like the North and Northeast, is traditionally rural, although its population growth was much less these past nine years. Besides the decentralization in Rio Grande do Sul, the increase in the number of cities also contributed to the number of non-agricultural-oriented jobs—from 1987-1999, 243 municipalities were created in the state. 18.4 percent of the 10,179,801 gauchos live in rural areas. This was 23.5 percent in 1991 and 32.5 percent in 1980. In other words, the South shows a trend of increasing growth in cities and non-agricultural rural and small city work.

The Census:

The total population of Brazil increased 22.7 million in relation to the 1991 census—over 3 million more than the IBGE predicted. "The difference of three million people resulted from the quality of information and a larger coverage of the census," stated Martus Tavares, the Minister of Planning. The IBGE originally predicted that Brazil would have 167 million inhabitants.

According to the president of the institute, Sérgio Besserman, the facts collected this year are more precise than that of previous censuses, because of new technology and management techniques. "We are inaugurating a new era of the census." In order to count the population, IBGE divided the country in 215,811 sections, each one under the responsibility of a census-taker. There were 5,507 digitalized maps produced and 6,823 places to collect formulas. 54,332,651 domiciles received visits from workers. Even people living under the viaducts were counted, since IBGE considered them to regard their living quarters as "fixed residences."

The 2000 census cost the federal government $350 million and is taking three years to complete. The largest portion of the costs, $242.5 million, was concentrated this year in the payment of the salaries of 230,000 people contracted by IBGE as census takers, who worked between August and November.

The 2000 census will only be completely finished in 2002, so all of these are preliminary numbers. During the next two years, the IBGE will divulge other results from the census. In April of 2001 the average inhabitants per domicile, the number of occupied, closed, and empty domiciles—as well as occasionally used—will be divulged. And in August, the literacy rates, levels of education, sanitation and home garbage collection will be announced. The census will inform us about composition of family, color, religion, education, and migration, among other things.

According to Marta Tavares, the Minister of Planning, "The more we know about the reality of our country, the better conditions we will have to focus and make adequate public spending." Regina Monteiro, architect and urbanist of the Defense Movement of São Paulo (Movimento Defenda São Paulo), stated "Half the population lives in an irregular form. We need to know where these people are and why they are there." The demographic conclusions from the census will determine alterations in the public policies and in the decisions of private investment.

The Future of Brazil:

According to Vianna (president of IBGE), in 1984 each woman had an average of 3.5 children. This is in comparison to 2.6 children per woman in 1990 and 2.2 children per woman in 2000. But this does not necessarily mean a lower rate of population increase, however, since these numbers are also accompanied with an increase in life expectancy—in the beginning of this century, it was around 35 years. Today, however, it is 72.3 years for women and 64.6 years for men.

The state of Rio averages 2.1 children per woman. The capital is 1.9 children and in Brazil overall, it is between 2.2 and 2.3 children. Between 1960-1970, Rio was 3.13 children average while Brazil was 5.22. From 1970-1980, Rio was 2.3 while Brazil was 2.48, and 1980-1990 Rio was 1.15 while Brazil was 1.3. Thus we see that family size in Brazil is dramatically decreasing.

Latin America is the second fastest growing continent in the world, growing, as has Brazil, at 1.6 percent annually. In the first place is Africa, with 2.4 percent, and the growth of the world population is 1.3 percent. According to the UN, Brazil is the fifth largest country (in terms of inhabitants) in the world. According to UN estimates, Brazil could have 244,230,000 inhabitants by 2050. Technicians of the IBGE say that for the population to remain stable, each family should have the equivalent of 2.1 children. But the Brazilian average is more than that. Latin America and the Caribbean, in 1999, made up 8.5 percent of the world population and should be 9.1 percent in 2050 and 9.4 percent in 2150. Europe, on the other hand, makes up 12.2 percent of the world population but should be 7 percent in 2050 and 5.3 percent in 2150. North America today comprises 5.1 percent of the total world population and will be 4.4 percent in 2050 and 4.1 percent in 2150.

Why is the growth rate slowing? According to Alícia Bercovich, this is due to cultural reasons, such as the diminution in the number of children that contributes to the slowing in population increase. "There are cultural reasons, such as the diminution of the number of children, which contributes to the deceleration," said Alícia.

In sum, the industrialization of Brazilian cities in the 1940s and 1950s turned Brazil into one of the largest and most urban countries in the world. Today, however, the rates of urbanization are decreasing, with the growth of non-agriculturally oriented jobs in the countryside. While Brazil has more women than men among her population, this is mainly confined to the cities; in the rural areas, men continue to dominate the population.

The author is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and is currently researching labor and immigration in state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The author can be contacted at krichardson@mail.utexas.edu  

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