Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267827 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2022/77
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Policy frames in Brazil have long run up against conflicting visions and understandings about the causes and consequences of group-based inequality. This paper argues that a class-based lens has dominated the social protection framework. In recent years, political leaders have framed social policy measures along 'universal' class lines with the aim of improving poverty and wellbeing. This framing is reflective of Brazil's national narrative on race relations and the idea that class and employment status have been the most salient barriers to social welfare protections. Brazil's widely well-regarded anti-poverty conditional cash transfer programme, Bolsa Família (2003-21), is emblematic of the country's universal and 'race-blind' approach to social policy. But given the strong correlation in Brazil between ethnicity and income, social protection policies such as the Bolsa Família have indirectly targeted vulnerable black and brown citizens. The analysis addresses how social policy has contributed advances to wellbeing in general and for Afro-Brazilians. A comparative perspective on social welfare systems offers important lessons on how poverty relief can further human development and enhance agency. Future reformers can learn from Brazil's pursuit of poverty reduction alongside administrative procedures that identify vulnerable groups, as a strategy to address intersectional inequalities of ethnicity and class.
Subjects: 
group-based inequality
Bolsa Família
poverty
race
Afro-Brazilian
social welfare
JEL: 
H53
I3
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-208-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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