Discover Brazil : Population

Controlled demographic growth

Its population is expected to peak in 2050, with almost 230 million Brazilians, before slowly declining and stabilizing at 180 million in 2100, the same as Brazil's population in 2005. The country has completed its demographic transition. Mortality and birth rates have fallen, and natural increase (the difference between birth and death rates) is low. The fall in the infant mortality rate has been spectacular, accompanying Brazil's development and emergence. The rate fell from 145 deaths per thousand births in 1950 to 48 in 1990 and 12 per thousand in 2020. Admittedly, this rate is still higher than in Western countries, but it reflects the country's development and the (relative) efficiency of its healthcare system. The overall rise in living standards, urbanization and literacy have led to a fall in the fertility rate. Ultimately, this will lead to a gradual aging of the population. By 2030, the proportion of the population aged over 65 should exceed that of the under-15s.

Many challenges

The challenges facing Brazil are therefore paradoxically twofold. The country must educate, care for, and integrate into the labor market a numerically large population, but it must also plan to adapt its health care and social prevention services to a population that will age rapidly, with new generations mechanically replacing fewer and fewer old ones. The demographic transition is accompanied, as in other countries where it has been completed, by an epidemiological transition. Mortality from infectious diseases is falling and is being supplanted by chronic and degenerative diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

A largely immigrant population

The composition and distribution of the Brazilian population cannot be understood without taking into account the weight of history. Brazil's population is largely the product of immigration, from the beginnings of colonization until the 1930s. Of the 3 to 5 million natives present when the Portuguese conquerors arrived, only a few hundred thousand remain today, living in very difficult social conditions. The Portuguese also brought with them, in chains, over 5 million slaves torn from their African lands, from the Gulf of Guinea, Mozambique and Angola. Slavery was abolished in 1888, and immigration was mainly European. Between 1870 and 1930, over 5 million immigrants set foot on Brazilian soil. In 1891, the historic figure of 210,000 annual migrants was reached; annual arrivals never fell below 30,000. At first, immigration was mainly Italian - the young Italian Republic encouraged the departure of overpopulated rural areas - and then the number of Spanish and Portuguese increased. The first Japanese arrived in Brazil in 1908, forming the first Japanese community outside the Land of the Rising Sun. In the 1920s, Eastern Europeans made their appearance. Finally, some 18,000 Syrians and Lebanese, most of them merchants, settled in Brazil in the 1910s to escape Ottoman persecution. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought mass immigration to a virtual halt. In 1900, over 7% of Brazilians were foreigners, compared with 0.3% today, one of the lowest rates among emerging and developed countries. Today, there are 700,000 foreigners (at least a tenth of whom recently arrived from neighboring Venezuela, which is facing one of the most serious economic crises in its history), outnumbering emigrant Brazilians (over 3 million).

Brazil, a mixed race epic

Brazil's external image is often that of a "racial democracy". The IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) considers six population categories: White, Black, Mestizo, Asian, Amerindian and "undeclared". According to the 2019 PNAD census, the "white" population is the largest, but it is not the majority (42.9%) and is smaller than the Métis population (46.8%). The "black" population makes up 9.4%, and Asians (Japanese and Koreans) 1.1%. Lastly, Amerindians currently account for just 0.43% of the Brazilian population. There is, however, a certain demographic dynamic in the Indian population, which is tending to grow slightly faster than the Brazilian population as a whole, and the TFR (Total Fertility Rate) of black and mixed-race populations is slightly higher than that of white populations, but increasingly tending to converge towards the latter. Overall, the Asian population is concentrated in the states of São Paulo and Mato Grosso. The Amerindian population is more numerous in Amazonia, where it is divided between various reserves and is unfortunately the victim of violence and plundering of its territories by large landowners and gold miners(garimpeiros). The Nordeste is marked by a rich cultural mix, the fruit of African, Indian and European "syncretism". Northern folklore is tinged with a "cabocla" tradition (a blend of Indian and European culture), such as the highly popular Bumba meu boi folk festival. The south of the country is more marked by European immigration. The presence of Swiss and German "colonias" can still be seen in the deliberately Bavarian appearance of the roofs of certain homes, or in certain beer festivals where the consumption of hopped beverages is punctuated by the sound of oumpapa musik.

An unevenly distributed population

The Brazilian population is not evenly distributed over the territory. Overall, Brazil is a sparsely populated country (30 inhabitants/km², i.e. 3.5 times less than the French population density). Moreover, population densities are very uneven. The Amazon basin is a vast, sparsely populated area, but there are nevertheless major metropolises such as Manaus and Belém, cities that far outnumber the French metropolises in terms of population, with the exception of Paris. In addition to the weight of geographical determinism, it is history that partly explains the distribution of the Brazilian population near the coasts. Colonization was carried out from the coasts and the colonial administration built its ports there, of course, but also its administrative, economic and military centres. Today, the factor of imbalance in the distribution of the population is the importance of urban populations. Brazil is an urban country where almost 80% of the people live in cities. There are 26 metropolitan regions with 75 million people, or 40% of the Brazilian population. Of the 14 large metropolises with more than one million inhabitants, 11 are located on the coast. Only Manaus, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte escape this rule. Brazil's largest metropolitan area, São Paulo, is a megacity with over 21 million inhabitants. Rio and São Paulo are the two Brazilian megacities according to the UN definition (cities with more than 10 million inhabitants), and together they have the equivalent of almost half the population of France. This urban presence is particularly important in the Brazilian Southeast, which includes the States of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Esperito Santo. A dense urban fabric of small and medium-sized cities is structured around the agglomerations of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, an urban and industrial "triangle" that concentrates 40% of Brazilian GDP. Two important and original geographical phenomena seem to be emerging. Some geographers talk about the structuring of a megalopolis that would join Rio, São Paulo and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Lastly, an original process of "demetropolization" is being observed. Populations are tending to leave the Brazilian metropolises for smaller cities, perhaps anticipating an urban movement that will affect the countries of the North.

The Portuguese language, a unifying factor

One of Brazil's unifying factors is undoubtedly the use of the Portuguese idiom throughout the country, with slight regional variations in accent and expression. Immigrant populations have blended into the Brazilian mainstream, and while a few elderly people in the Pomerode region of Santa Catarina state are said to still speak an old Pomeranian dialect, the original languages have gradually disappeared. The various indigenous peoples are trying to preserve their languages and cultures, with the help of FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), but many native idioms are threatened with extinction. Young Brazilians of indigenous origin sometimes move to the city to work or study (even if they still too often suffer discrimination), and distance themselves from their ancestral language and traditional way of life. This is a far cry from the achievements of Quebec's First Peoples. Fortunately, more and more progressive Brazilians are aware of the immeasurable value of indigenous linguistic and cultural heritage, and programs and associations for the promotion and dissemination of indigenous culture and crafts are springing up in many places (such as Paraty and Cuiabá). Last but not least, certain African languages such as Yoruba have been maintained as languages of worship. Candomblé ceremonies are held in Yoruba, especially in Salvador. Many place names (Iguaçu or Ipanema), animal names (the anaconda is known as sucuri, the puma as suçuarana) and plant names are of indigenous origin.