RACIAL-INEQUALITY IN BRAZIL AND THE UNITED-STATES - A STATISTICAL COMPARISON

This article compares statistical indicators of racial inequality between whites and nonwhites in Brazil and the United States for the period 1940-1988. Specific areas examined include: geographic and spatial distribution of whites and nonwhites; demographic indicators; education; and employment and earnings. Up until 1960 census and household survey data yield measures of racial inequality that tended to be greater in the United States than in Brazil. Over time, however, those measures have tended to decline in the United States while remaining stable, or in some cases increasing, in Brazil. As a result, by 1980 (no data are available for Brazil for 1970) the United States ranked as the more racially equal of the two societies on most indicators. In explaining this change in the two countries' relative position, the article focuses on three factors: migration and the regional distribution of racial groups; the income-concentrating effects of economic growth and state policies concerning race. Each of these factors tended to reduce racial inequality in the United States between 1950 and 1980, while leaving such inequality in place in Brazil. Since 1980 these factors have reversed direction in the United States, with the result that racial inequality in that country increased measurably over the last ten years. Nevertheless, by 1988, the last year covered in this study, the United States still displayed lower levels of racial inequality that those recorded in Brazil.