women in school, but not adult women. In particular, it is claimed that these programs provide no support for women to choose to dedicate time to more empowering productive work (Molyneux, 2006; Bartholo, 2016, n. 55).
The PBF cannot evade the criticism that it uses women as mediators between the state and the family, but it seems reductionist to interpret it simply as a materialistic program that does not offer to choices to adult women. The structural improvement of the choices available to poorest women involves access to the PBF but is not limited to it. It requires the understanding that gender equality is a long-term process of change that depends on changing public policies in various areas. Moreover, perhaps the best that PBF can offer to improve women’s living conditions and choices is its social information platform, which includes identification data about the socio-economic characteristics of almost half of the country’s population. Any other responsibility attributed to the PBF to expand women’s choices seems to be beyond the scope of its goals and mandate (Bartholo, 2016, n. 55, p. 4).
By Way of a Conclusion
PBF has substantially reduced the severity of the recipients’ poverty but brought comparably few Brazilians out of poverty completely. This is not surprising given the small amounts of money being transferred, but it represented a significant accomplishment on the path toward a Brazil that guarantees basic human needs. Bolsa Familia is cited widely as an exemplary social policy that illustrates Brazil’s commitment to social inclusion and expansion of citizenship rights (de la Briere and Rawlings, 2006). At the same time, conditional cash transfers exemplify the claim that the Brazilian democracy has succeeded in adding new programs to the social agenda that provide minimal social protection and that further basic education and health among marginal populations as long as they are kept within reasonable financial limits and do not upset important stakeholders. A key factor in the Bolsa’s political appeal is that it does not challenge enshrined social protections to the middle and upper classes. Although Brazil’s post-authoritarian governments have devoted new attention and resources to the social area, they have done little to narrow the stark differences in people’s effective access to public entitlements and social programs. One implication is that poorer groups with little political influence may be left without a strong political voice to defend the services or tracks that they alone occupy, while their better-off counterparts will have the means to defend their own spear of entitlements. For Brazil’s democracy, overcoming this historical division is an essential step toward providing meaningful citizenship to all.
References
Andrews, George Reid (1992). “Racial Inequality in Brazil and the United States: A Statistical Comparison”. Journal of Social History, 26(2): 229–263.
Bartholo, L. (2016). Bolsa Familia and Gender Relations: National Survey Results. Policy Research Brief No.55. Brasilia: International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
Beltrão, K. and M. S. Novellion (2002). Alfabetização por raça e sexo no Brasil: evolução no período 1940–2000. Rio de Janeiro: Ence, IBGE.
Beltrao, K. I. and J. E. Diniz Alves (2009). “Reversal of gender gap in Brazilian education in the 20th century”, Cardenos de Pesquina, 39(136).
Cardoso. A. R. and D. Verner (2006). School Drop-Out and Push-Out Factors in Brazil: The Role of Early Parenthood, Child Labour, and Poverty. Bonn: IZA, Discussion Paper No. 2515 [in Klaveren et al. (2009). An Overview of Women’s Work and Employment in Brazil, Decisions for Life MDG3 Project, Country Report No. 12, University of Amsterdam/Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)].
Cunha, L. A. (2000). “Ensino superior e universidade no Brasil”. In E. M. T. Lopes and L. M. F. C. G. Faria Veiga (Eds.), 500 anos de educação no Brasil. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, pp. 151–204.
de la Briere, B. and L. B. Rawlings (2006). Examining Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: A Role for Increased Social Inclusion? Social Protection and Labor. Discussion Paper No. 0603. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/20204.
Figueiredo, A. (2015). “The work of Carl Hasenbalg and its importance for the study of the relations of racial inequalities in Brazil”, Society and State, 30(1).
Hahner, J. (1981). A Mulher brasileira e suas lutas sociais e políticas: 1850–1937. São Paulo: Brasiliense.
Heime, F.-W. (1975). “Education and politics in Brazil”, Comparative Education Review, 19(1): 51–67.
Htun, M. N. (2003). “Women and democracy”. In J. I. Dominguez and M. Shifter (Eds.), Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, pp. 120–121. https://malahtun.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/htun-2003-women-and-democracy.pdf.
Hunter, W. and N. B. Sugiyama (2009). “Democracy and social policy in Brazil: Advancing basic needs, preserving privileged interests”, Latin American Politics and Society, 51(2): 39.
Klaveren, M., M. H. Williams, K. Tijdens, and N. R. Martin (2009). An Overview of Women’s Work and Employment in Brazil. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, Working Paper 09–83.
Kowarick, L. and M. Campanario (1986). “Sao Paulo: The price of a world city status”, Development & Change, 17: 159–174.
Lovell, P. A. (2000). “Gender, race, and the struggle for social justice in Brazil”, Latin American Perspectives, 27(6): 85–102.
Merrick, T. W. and D. H. Graham (1979). Population and Economic Development in Brazil, 1800 to Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Molyneux, Maxine (2006). “Mothers at the Service of the New Poverty Agenda: Progresa/Oportunidades, Mexico’s Conditional Transfer Programme”, 40(4): 425–449.
Naercio, M. F. and L. Scorzafave (2012). Employment and Inequality in Brazil. https://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/42546065.pdf.
National Native News (2017). http://nativenews.net/health-wellness-indigenous-way.
Oliviera, L. E. et al. (1985). O “lugar do negro” na forca de trabalho. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE.
Ribeiro, A. I. M. (2000). “Mulheres educadas na colônia”. In E. M. T. Lopes, L. M. F. Faria, and C. G. Veiga (Eds.), 500 anos de educação no Brasil. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, pp. 79–94.
Romanelli, O. O. (2001). História da educação no Brasil (1930/1973). Petrópolis: Vozes.
Skidmore, T. E. (1992). Fact and Myth: Discovering a Racial Problem in Brazil. Notre Dame, Indiana: Kellogg Institute of International Studies. # Working Paper 173.
Telles, E. and M. Paixao (2013). Affirmative Action in Brazil. LASA Forum, 44(2).
Telles, E., R. D. Flores, and F. Urrea-Giraldoc (2015). “Pigmentocracies: Educational inequality, skin color and census ethnoracial identification in eight Latin American countries”, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 40: 39–58.
Therborn, G. (2004). Between Sex and Power: Family in the World, 1900–2000. London: Routledge.
Wetzel, D. and V. Economico (2013). Bolsa Familia: Brazil’s Quiet Revolution. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.
Wood, C. H. and J. A. M. de Carvalho (1988). The Demography of Inequality in Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press.
1Indigenous people constitute a majority of the population in Bolivia and Guatemala and a significant minority in Ecuador and Peru. Afro-descendants