Skin color, racial identity, and life chances in Brazil

For all of the nuance and complexity embedded in the social meaning of skin color in Brazil, there is a growing body of empirical evidence that offers important insights into its relationship to identify, inequality, and discrimination. These findings draw heavily on census and survey data, which are hardly ideal sources of information on topics of such extraordinary intricacy. In the face of some obvious limitations, however, with appropriate caveats it is possible to derive meaningful conclusions form the large samples afforded by national censuses and surveys. In assembling the available data into a meaningful story, we found it useful to think of inequality and discrimination as subtle interrelated processes that impinge on Brazilians of African descent throughout the life course. The image of the life course imemdiately draws the eye to those critical junctures when socioeconomic, cultural, and political institutions and processes express themselves, systematically converting to the detriment of the Afro-Brazilian population. By focusing on four critical transitions - surviving childhood, acquiring an education, entering the labor market, and getting paid - we make explicit one of the central theses of this study: that the sharp disparities readily observed in the cross section are the cumulative product of a sequence of insults that are independently associated with skin color and not reducible to differences in social class. When we compare the disparities that manifest themselves in each chapter in the life course over time and across regions, our findings provide a textured account of the way in which economic development and social change affect the life chances of people of different skin color. Because the empirical findings presented hear are based on national censuses and surveys, it is appropriate to begin this study with a review of the debates regarding the use of these data. This discussion serves to highlight many of the nuances of racial identity in Brazil and makes explicit the caveats associated with the use of data produced by the census bureau.