Abstract (Translated):
The work shows that in the 90s the growth of activities linked to the informal economy has become a lasting feature of Brazilian society; this fact is empirically verified for the main metropolitan regions. Analysing the case of street peddlers, the trend of the Rio de Janeiro economy towards a slow depletion process becomes clear: the economically active population (PEA) as well as the regional work force had the smallest growth rates of all metropolitan regions, while the share engaged in street peddling had positive growth. The street peddlers/PEA ratio of Rio had the second largest growth rate of all Brazilian metropolitan regions. One may concludes that Rio de Janeiro keeps moving towards increasingly precarious work relationships. The paper also analyses the profile of street peddlers of Greater Rio according to gender, age, schooling and familiar status, revenues.