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1

Social Stratification and Its

Transformation in Brazil

C. Scalon

Inequality and Stratification

According to Grusky (2008: 13), The task of identifying the essential

dynamics underlying social change has long been fundamental to Sociology,

but nowhere is this interest better developed or more fundamental than

within the field of inequality analysis.

Thus social transformation cannot be discussed without also takinginto consideration transformations in the distribution of wealth and how

individuals are allocated within the social structure. This is all the more

important given that inequality is the most expressive trait of Brazilian

society, appearing as a multi-dimensional, transversal, and durable phe-

nomenon. Inequality is largely the result of the way in which social strat-

ification is configured within a given society. It depends on circumstances

and on choices made throughout the history of each society. This is why

analyzing class structure is so relevant to understanding Brazil.

All contemporary societies are unequal and the inequality is manifested

in many different ways: power, wealth, income, and prestige, among others.

Its origins are as varied as its manifestations. What makes Brazil distinct

is that such historical inequality persists even though the country has beengoing through an accelerated process of modernization. This trend becomes

clearer when looking at the extremely elevated rates of income inequality.

Even as the Gini coefficient has steadily decreased over the last decade, the

degree of inequality in income is still quite high, even when considering how

unequal the Latin American continent is as a whole.

3

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4 C. Scalon

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1991 2000 2010

Percentage

Urban

Rural

Fig. 1.1. Brazilian population in rural and urban areas by decade.Source: Population censuses, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

It is therefore crucial that we take a better look at the structural

changes that have taken place in emerging countries during the last few

decades. In Brazil, the greatest transformation in the countrys social struc-

ture in the last decades is still, to this day, the transference of labor force

from the countryside to the city. Until 1960, the population was still mostly

rural, with 54.92% living in the countryside. Since then there has been sig-

nificant growth within the urban population (see Fig. 1.1).According to the 2010 census, Brazil has a population of 190,732,694

inhabitants, 84.35% of whom (160,879,708) live in urban areas. These rates

vary from region to region, for instance, the urbanization rate in the South-

east is 92.92%, while in the Northeast the rate is 73.13%. Note that the lat-

ter is the poorest region of the country, having the largest rural population,

approximately 27%.

On a purely demographic level, this transformation is meaningful since

it incorporates transformations in the occupational and economic struc-

tures, as well as access to goods and services. Naturally, this transformation

also has an impact on the composition of the labor force because every year

legions of workers become employed in urban sectors.

Brazils economy grew at an average rate of 7% per year between 1950and 1980, a development rate made possible because of the transference of

labor force from country to city, and also because of importing technology.

These factors were also facilitated by the accelerating growth of the GDP

and rising productivity.

The country started industrializing at the end of the 19th century, but

industrial growth started accelerating only after 1950. Until then, Brazils

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Social Stratification and Its Transformation in Brazil 5

economy was based on traditional labor relationships. With modernization,

an increasingly unequal income distribution has run parallel to this

development.

In 1940 and 1950, over 60% of the EAP (Economically Active Popu-

lation1) was employed in the primary sector, but in 1980, this percentage

dropped to 31%, further dropping to 26% in 1996. This reduction is still in

progress since demographic statistics from the year 2000 census show that

out of an EAP2 comprising 87.2 million people or 48.5% of the countrys

total population, only 24.2% still worked in the primary sector. Here, special

attention should be given to the progressive mechanization of agriculturalwork in the country.

The secondary sector employed 19.3% of the EAP in the year 2000. This

small proportion may be explained by mechanization and robotization in

industrial activity. In any case, this phenomenon may be explained by the

de-industrializing process that took place in Brazil during the 1980s and

1990s. Already in the 1980s, workers in the secondary sector only comprised

29% of the EAP.

The tertiary sector currently employs the greatest number of Brazilian

workers, corresponding in 2000 to 56.5% of the EAP. Activities that in 1960

incorporated merely 33.3% rose to 40% in 1980. However, we need to keep in

mind that this kind of work is not dominated by modern businesses but, on

the contrary, personal care and services that generally employ unqualified

labor.

The tertiary sector enjoyed the greatest growth rate in the country. In

1940, it employed only 20% of the EAP; in 1980 this proportion had dou-

bled and by 1996 it had already come to incorporate 56% of the 68 million

people making up the economically active population in the country. The

tertiarization of Brazils economy, which reached a peak during the 1980s

economic crisis, relocated labor force from the secondary and primary sec-

tors to the tertiary sector, and grew at a rate of 16% between 1980 and

1996.

Figure 1.2 shows the evolution of the distribution of the three sectors

between 1940 and 2000.

1The Economically Active Population (EAP) corresponds to individuals who are cur-rently employed or are effectively seeking for employment.2This number represents 48.5% of the Brazilian population in 2000. However, it canbe underestimated, considering that many workers are not registered, such as children,teenagers, domestic workers and street vendors, among others.

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6 C. Scalon

Fig. 1.2. Economic sectors by year.Source: Population censuses and 1996 demographic counting, IBGE.

In 2009, of the 162.8 million people who were 10 years or older, 101.1

million were economically active. Out of these, 92.7 million were employed

and 8.4 million were looking for work during the week the survey was carried

out (PNAD, 2009). In other words, the unemployment rate was 8.3%.

Urbanization and industrialization led to the appearance of new urbansocial groups with ties to the modernized sector of the national economy.

At the same time, however, the urban industrial sector remained concen-

trated in the Southeast (Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo) and these new classes

lived alongside traditional structures located in less developed regions.

This is the typical scenario throughout Latin America. As Shanin

(1976: 53) has affirmed: In Latin America capitalist production is com-

bined in a variety of ways with other modes of production, thus constituting

a degree of complexity difficult to comprehend. In addition, urban develop-

ment in Brazil has increased at a much greater rate than industrial develop-

ment. Consequently, the economy is incapable of absorbing all of the available

labor force, thus resulting in unemployment and underemployment.

In 2009, merely 50% of the salary-earning workforce had registered jobs,44.7% were either independent or working without signed documents, and

4.4% worked merely for their own subsistence (PNAD, 2009).

Different from poverty, which is more visible and easier to target for

specific eradication policies, inequality is not always perceived and framed

as a problem. As an all-encompassing and diffuse problem, inequality may

be found wherever we look: income, education, employment, physically

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0.51

0.52

0.53

0.54

0.55

0.56

0.57

0.58

0.59

0.6

0.61

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Fig. 1.3. Evolution of the Gini Index for Brazil (19952005).Source: Paes de Barros et al. (2007).

occupying geographic space, and even citizenship are stratified and

unequally distributed.

Despite a decrease in income inequality (see Fig. 1.3), with a 0.05 drop

in the Gini index within a decade, Brazil still possesses one of the worst

income concentration rates in the world. In 2009, the Gini still hoveredat 0.54.

In Brazil, it is clear that poverty is the result of an unequal income dis-

tribution. Poor people work and may thus be considered to be deserving

poor. Yet due to a lack of capital both educational capital and prop-

erty they actually earn much less than what would be necessary to lead

a dignified life.

There has been some debate over the methodologies used to measure

the poverty line. These discussions end up revealing divergences over the

concept of poverty itself. For example, one may speak in terms of absolute

and relative poverty. According to Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, depri-

vation cannot be understood in absolute terms since it is present at diverse

levels. As such, the concept of poverty cannot be reduced to the notionof unstable income; poverty must be understood in a more complex and

encompassing way as a lack of basic capabilities that lead to vulnerability,

exclusion, exposure to fear and violence lack of power, participation, and

voice. In sum, this amounts to being excluded from basic rights and well-

being. Hence, the problem of inequality should not be limited to income,

since this factor is related to other forms of inequality, such as race, gender,

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8 C. Scalon

class, and citizenship, among innumerous other dimensions of social real-

ity. Sociology would be reductionist to limit itself to focusing on income as

the major type of inequality; this kind of perspective is better adapted to

economics than other social sciences. This is why they are more concerned

with relationships, practices, and other dimensions of life within a society,

and not merely the economic sphere.

For Sen (2001: 171): Even the prerequisite of objectivity in a descrip-

tion does not require social invariability, as is sometimes supposed. What

is considered as a terrible privation may vary naturally from one society

to another, yet from the social analysts perspective these variations allserve as material to be used in an objective study. Since Sen defends the

proposition that poverty should be analyzed by considering deficiencies in

basic functional capabilities and not in terms of functions that have already

been carried out, he affirms that As far as income is concerned, the relevant

concept of poverty should be inadequacy (to generate minimally acceptable

capabilities). A poverty line that completely ignores individual character-

istics cannot do justice to our genuine concerns over what is most basic

to poverty; insufficient capabilities due to inadequate economical means.

It is always a better idea to group individuals together into particular cate-

gories (related to class, sex, occupational group, employment status, etc.).

If we chose to express poverty in terms of income, then the required income

will have to be linked to the causal requirements of minimum capabilities

(Sen, 2001: 175). This would explain why the relationship between income

and capability is not the same for all social groups, but on the contrary,

varies according to age, place of residence, race, and sex, among other social

factors.

Here, it is worth emphasizing that Sens theory has been elaborated

around the concept of an individuals capability to function according to

the given values of this individual. This is the basis for liberty and equality.

Even so, in order to implement and evaluate public policies used to

combat poverty, it is still necessary to establish an objective base by using

some sort of measurement of absolute poverty. This is because measuring

relative poverty would have to incorporate an extensive debate about whichparticular consumer items should or should not be considered basic. Rocha

(2005: 46) maintains that establishing a poverty line based on observed

consumer patterns consists in selecting a theoretical basis, such as the nutri-

tional necessities established by the Food and Agricultural Organization

(FAO). The value of consumption in and of itself, on the other hand, does

not permit this nourishment is often accepted as an inevitable weakness.

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There is no theoretical basis which can be used to establish the standard

on what minimally adequate consumption should be in terms of clothing,

living space, transport, etc. According to Rocha, absolute poverty refers to

a lack of the minimal conditions necessary in order to survive, while relative

poverty incorporates necessities associated to the predominant way of life

in any given society. Thus, the absolute poverty line is tied to attending to

the nutritional needs of a determined population, a pioneering approach

created by Rowntree in a study on poverty in the city of York in 1901

(Rocha, 1988: 257).

And yet, if relative poverty, or privation of capabilities, is not the mostadequate way of establishing an objective criteria of measurement, neither

are poverty lines based solely on income criteria, since they do not consider

differentiations in the price of consumer items necessary to meet basic needs.

There are still other relevant questions that should be taken into con-

sideration, such as the inadequacy of a single poverty line to be applied to

an entire country, since there may be significant price variation across the

country for items considered part of a basic food basket.3 Because of the

deep inequalities still persistent in Brazil not only between urban and

rural areas or between two regions of the country, but also between different

localities within the same region it is necessary to construct more than

one poverty line.

Since 2003, poverty rates have been falling in Brazil. Between 2003 and

2008, the decrease in absolute poverty rates (meaning those who earn up to

half a monthly minimum wage) and extreme poverty rates (those who earn

up to a quarter of a monthly minimum wage) fell, on average, from 3.1% to

2.1% a year, respectively. Even so, around 45 million Brazilians were still

living below the poverty line in 2009.

Figure 1.4 shows the evolution of the number of poor people in the

country.

Regional Inequalities

The Northeast where a third of the Brazilian population lives, is home tohalf of the poor people of Brazil, or 23.4 million individuals. This does not

3Other measurements of poverty are based on the cost of a basic food basket that fulfillsthe needs of minimum caloric intake of an individual. It varies between regions, statesand urban, rural and metropolitan areas, depending on assumptions about the cost andconsumption patterns of different populations.

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10 C. Scalon

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1992 1993 1996 1998 2001 2004 2006 2008 20092007200520032002199919971995

Fig. 1.4. Number of people below the poverty line in Brazil by year (in millions).Source: Rocha based on PNAD/IBGE.

mean that the problem is not serious in other regions, but it should be

emphasized that 44.2% of Northeasterners are in this situation. There is an

evident cleavage between regions in Brazil, with the North and Northeast

being the poorest and the South and Southeast being the richest. Thesedifferences are expressed not only from the income distribution, but are

also manifested in the quality of life and opportunities for people.

Regional inequalities can be observed in Fig. 1.5.

These regional inequalities can be expressed in different factors that

touch directly upon poverty and inequality. Since poverty in Brazil is related

to whether one lives in the countryside or not, a greater proportion of the

inhabitants in a rural population may also indicate a greater probabil-

ity of privation. Figure 1.6 shows that the percentage of people living in

rural areas is greater in the North and Northeast than in the rest of the

country.

Furthermore, the Northeast has the lowest employment rate in Brazil,

where 55.6% of the EAP is unemployed, while the South has the highest:61.8%. For other regions, the proportions are: North: 56.1%; Southeast:

57.2%, and Center-West: 59.7%.

Considering the evolution of domestic income per capita in Brazil as

a whole, this situation is not so distinct. In spite of being able to observe

a constant increase in income, a large gap between regions is still visible

(Fig. 1.7).

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Fig. 1.5. Percentage of people living below and above the poverty line by region in2009.Source: Rocha4 based on PNAD/IBGE.

Fig. 1.6. Urban and rural populations by region.Source: Census 2010.

The 2010 Census indicated other factors of inequality between regions.

The Northeast has the lowest life expectancy rate: 62.4 and 68.5 years

for men and women, respectively, while the South registered the highest

rate: 67.1 and 74.8 years, respectively. The infant mortality rate does not

4Sonia Rocha at http://www.iets.org.br/rubrique.php3?id rubrique=12

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12 C. Scalon

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1992

1993

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Brazil

North

Northeast

Center-West

Southeast

South

Fig. 1.7. Real domestic income per capita, values in Brazilian Reals in 2009, using theINPC to measure deflation.Source: IETS based on PNAD.5

Table 1.1. Distribution of EGP Classes by Year.

Classes 2001 2009

I Higher-grade profs & adm 3.

9 4.

2II Lower-grade prof & adm 4.4 5.0IIIa Higher-grade routine non-manual 10.1 10.8IIIb Lower-grade routine non-manual work 8.5 9.4IVa Small proprietors, with employees 3.7 3.6IVb Small proprietors, without employees 4.5 3.9IVc2 Rural self-employed 5.7 4.6IVc Rural employers 0.9 0.5V Technicians and superv. manual work 1.5 2.2VI Skilled manual workers 16.5 17.7VIIa Semi- & unskilled manual workers 28.4 27.7VIIb Agricultural workers 12.0 10.4

Total 100.0 100.0

Source: IBGE, PNADs (2001; 2009).

present favorable statistics for the Northeast either: 58.9% for men and

46.3% for women, while in the South these percentages are 25.9% and

19.6%, respectively (See Tables 1.1 and 1.2).

5Source: http://www.iets.org.br/. PNAD was not surveyed in 1994 and 2000.

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Table 1.2. Per Capita Household Income Distribution by EGP Classes.

Classes Mean Std. Deviation

I Higher-grade profs & adm 213.4 206.5II Lower-grade prof & adm 126.1 135.5IIIa Higher-grade routine non-manual 96.8 103.8IIIb Lower-grade routine non-manual work 69.2 68.1IVa Small proprietors, with employees 142.0 216.8IVb Small proprietors, without employees 58.2 69.0IVc2 Rural self-employed 28.4 37.9IVc Rural employers 106.6 247.3

V Technicians and superv. manual work 91.

9 116.

5VI Skilled manual workers 50.7 85.7VIIa Semi- & unskilled manual workers 42.3 39.3VIIb Agricultural workers 27.0 30.1

Source: IBGE PNAD (2009).

Class and Stratification

Studying class structure fills an important gap in analyzing social stratifi-

cation, which goes back to the classical sociology of Marx and Weber. How

individuals are positioned in the class structure and what their chances

in life are of attaining social positions are a fundamental theme in soci-

ological literature. By using the bases that Marxist and Weberian theorylaid, many different theoretical-conceptual guidelines have been drawn to

analyze class.

Sociological categories of class are quite relevant for describing and

understanding the unequal distribution of opportunities and rewards in

Brazil. These categories also draw attention to the role that class plays in

mediating and conditioning the effects of other divisions as well as the social

resources used to standardize inequality. Class divisions exercise important

causal powers that affect different social processes and results, contributing

both directly and indirectly to the existence of pronounced and durable

inequality in Brazilian society (Scalon and Santos, 2010: 99).

In this chapter, we have decided to adopt the EGP (Erickson,

Goldthorpe, and Portocarrero) categories to define social strata accord-ing to the 12 classes; this scheme is widely used in international analyses

on stratification and mobility (Breen, 2004). The scheme also incorporates

characteristics that make reference to the Weberian concept of class, view-

ing class as groups sharing similar chances in life, different from other groups

having distinct opportunities, including mobility. In his analyses of mobility,

Goldthorpe (1987; 1993) defines categories by combining both occupation

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14 C. Scalon

and employment status, which both report to the general market and labor

situation in a given place (Lockwood, 1958).

In Weberian analysis, class corresponds to an aggregate of class situa-

tions, basically, market positions that do not necessarily form communities.

As such, a class refers to a group of individuals who share a common market

situation, in terms of the goods and skills they possess (Giddens, 1973).

According to Weber (1977), class refers to (1) a certain number of

people who have in common a specific causal component of their chances in

life as long as (2) this component is represented exclusively by an interest

in possessing income goods and opportunities and (3) is represented byprevailing commodity and labor market conditions. For this author, the

quoted points regarding class situation, are expressed in what would be

considered typical chances in terms of offer of goods, external life conditions,

and personal experiences in life, and these chances are determined by a

certain quantity of power, or lack of power, which may be used to dispose

of income goods and qualifications.

Employing this class scheme, we may now summarize the class distri-

bution in Brazil, as shown in Table 1.1.

The data reveals just how stable the distribution of strata remained

during the eight-year period considered here. In spite of all the attention

given to transformations, especially regarding how such transformations

affect income or the capacity of the Brazilian population to consume, the

countrys class structure has remained practically unaltered. It is a well-

known fact that structural change is slow and demands great social trans-

formations. What we see in Table 1.1 are small variations that do not imply

more meaningful alterations in class composition in Brazil. From 2001 to

2009, limiting our consideration to those jobs varying 1% or more, are skilled

manual workers, whose numbers increased by 1.2%, the rural self-employed,

who decreased by 1.1%, and agricultural workers, who decreased by 1.6%.

We may thus observe that the rural sector is still changing more quickly

than the rest, handing over labor force to the urban sector.

In addition, the table indicates that Brazil is still far from constituting a

middle-class society, since in 2009, 47.6% of the workforce was concentratedin manual occupations, and this percentage only includes urban jobs (V, VI,

and VIIa). In the aggregate, the urban non-manual sector grew from 2001

to 2009. White-collar positions (I, II, IIIa, and IIIb) represented, in 2001,

26.9% of the total number of people considered in this sample, while in

2009 they totaled 29.4%. However, it is difficult to affirm that this 2.5%

increase has been meaningful in transforming the Brazilian class structure.

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At the very least, it seems not to have had much of an impact on the income

growth seen during this period, while it did allow for greater consumption

among a sliver of the population.

The stability of the social structure is a known fact, sustainable even

in light of the meaningful transformations occurring in the working world.

In dealing with large aggregates, occupational changes within class groups

have not seemed to have caused any sort of greater impact within the more

all-encompassing framework of class structure. Migrating from a skilled

manual job in the industrial sector to the service sector does not provoke

variations in the distribution of strataper se, as they have been defined here.Table 1.2 shows income averages and standard deviations for the

12 EGP classes, thus permitting an evaluation of income inequality between

them.

There are clear income disparities between strata, despite significant

variation within each of them. Only the higher non-manual strata (I and II)

and individuals possessing property and domestic help, whether in the

urban (IVa) or rural sectors (IVc) have a per capita domestic income greater

than 100,00 reals. Rural workers, whether self-employed (IVc2) or employed

by others (VIIb) have the least amount of registered income. Note the

expressive cleavage between the manual and non-manual sectors, as well as

between the urban and rural sectors.

Identity is also an important factor in the composition of the social

structure. Here, we will consider gender and ethnicity. Of the diverse socio-

demographic factors that influence ones chances of being allocated in the

class structure, and even the occupational structure, gender ends up having

the largest impact in any society. Many social groups suffer disadvantages

when competing for positions in the social structure, but few incorporate

the segmentation of the labor market as much as gender does. It may be

said that minority groups tend to be concentrated in more or less privileged

sectors, yet even so, it would be difficult to affirm that there is a segmented

labor market, such as what appears between men and women.

In this segmented market, women have their own rather peculiar place.

The unequal distribution of positions in the labor market according togender has been widely debated by many different authors (see Crompton

and Mann, 1986; Siltanen, 1994; Dex, 1987; Scalon, 1999). It would be an

oversight, therefore, for this study to fail to ascertain the composition of

the classes analyzed according to gender. Table 1.3 highlights the results.

The data in Table 1.3 reveals that class distribution suffers from the

effects of gender. Men and women, as observed in a previous study of class

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16 C. Scalon

Table 1.3. Distribution of EGP Classes by Gender.

Classes Men Women Total

I Higher-grade profs & adm 4.3 4.1 4.2II Lower-grade prof & adm 4.7 5.5 5.0IIIa Higher-grade routine non-manual 7.2 15.3 10.8IIIb Lower-grade routine non-manual work 7.2 12.2 9.4IVa Small proprietors, with employees 4.5 2.5 3.6IVb Small proprietors, without employees 3.7 4.2 3.9IVc2 Rural self-employed 7.1 1.3 4.6IVc Rural employers 0.8 0.1 0.5


7 1.

5 2.2VI Skilled manual workers 20.9 13.8 17.7VIIa Semi- & unskilled manual workers 26.4 29.3 27.7VIIb Agricultural workers 10.5 10.2 10.4

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: IBGE, PNAD (2009).

mobility (Scalon, 1999), were placed in distinct segments of the labor mar-

ket and, consequently, are distributed in different kinds of occupations.

Hence, the stratification structure is also segmented by sex. Women are bet-

ter represented in the non-manual sectors, especially routine occupations

on the lowest ranks of this sector. And the literature shows that, withinthese strata, womens occupations enjoy less status and prestige (Scalon

and Santos, 2010).

By observing strata IVa, IVc, and IVc2, a male predominance may be

noted. Literature on work and gender has frequently pointed this charac-

teristic of the job market; categories characterized by property and control

over others work tend to be held by men, except for small proprietors with-

out employees (IVb), a highly precarious category, in which women are in

greater proportion.

On the other hand, within the manual sector, women are generally

employed in low-skilled occupations, while among qualified workers, tech-

nicians, and supervisors of manual labor, the proportion of male workers is

greater. This effect is certainly enhanced by domestic work, an essentiallyfemale chore.

In general, women occupy jobs that reproduce domestic attributions,

i.e., activities corresponding to their social role. Thus, the spaces destined

for women in the labor market are concentrated in activities implying care-

taking and nurturing of others, such as nursing, teaching, cleaning, sales,

attending, etc. (Scalon, 2009).

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Table 1.4. Distribution of EGP Classes by Race.

Classes White Black Total

I Higher-grade profs & adm 6.5 1.8 4.1II Lower-grade prof & adm 6.8 3.1 5.0IIIa Higher-grade routine non-manual 12.7 8.7 10.8IIIb Lower-grade routine non-manual work 10.3 8.5 9.4IVa Small proprietors, with employees 4.9 2.2 3.5IVb Small proprietors, without employees 3.9 3.9 3.9IVc2 Rural self-employed 3.9 5.3 4.6IVc Rural employers 0.6 0.3 0.5


5 1.

8 2.

2VI Skilled manual workers 17.0 18.6 17.8VIIa Semi- & unskilled manual workers 23.5 32.2 27.8VIIb Agricultural workers 7.3 13.6 10.4

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: IBGE, PNAD (2009).

Another important dimension of inequality in the Brazilian class struc-

ture pertains to ethnic distinctions. The blacks have traditionally suffered

discrimination and systematic disadvantages throughout Brazils history.

Despite recent policies aimed at social inclusion, such as racial quotas in

public universities for the blacks and public school students, this gap stillhas not been covered and this is most certainly a social problem that will

take decades to be addressed. Table 1.4 shows the distribution of the blacks

and the whites per social strata.

In the category of black, we joined people who identify themselves as

black and pardos (mixed or mullatos).

Here, inequality between the whites and the blacks is quite clear. While

6.5% of the whites, both men and women, occupy the top of the social

pyramid (class I), only 1.8% of the blacks appear in this grouping. White-

collar jobs (I, II, IIIa, and IIIb) incorporate 36.3% of the white workers,

while there are only 22.1% of black workers. When considering propri-

etors with employees (IVa), the proportion of the whites is more than

double that of the blacks. At the same time, the percentage of propri-etors with no employees (IVb) is surprisingly similar, being equal for both

groups.

In the urban manual sector, the proportions differ more expressively in

the non-qualified manual sector which incorporates almost a third of the

black workers. That is the least well-paid and prestigious of the strata with

the lowest status. In the rural sectors as well, the blacks are concentrated

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18 C. Scalon

in the lowest level, working in agriculture (VIIb), in a proportion that is

double that of registered for the whites.

It is also revealing to complement this information with an analysis of

white and black participation in the formal and informal sectors, and also

as consumers. Here it is fundamental to separate men and women, since the

labor market is segmented and women more frequently tend to carry out

activities related to their own and their families consumption. This is why

we have only analyzed information referring to men between 24 and 65, i.e.,

the group considered in the class analysis as a general rule. White men enjoy

more formalized employment situations; 60.2% are registered workers. Thispercentage declines significantly for black men: 49.8%. A slightly higher

percentage of blacks work in the informal sector (corresponding to 47.7%.

The percentage of men who work merely for their own subsistence is low

1.3% for whites and 2.5% for blacks.

We may therefore conclude that besides being placed in less favorable

positions in the class structure, blacks are also at a greater disadvantage in

the labor market, having more precarious jobs.

Final Considerations

Today the debate on social inequality encompasses a wide range of elements

that are part of social relationships, especially those based on identity-basedtraits. A wider notion of justice and equality that contemporary societies

have developed as a common discourse has led many to strive towards more

equal living conditions. The problem of inequality stimulates debate on top-

ics such as environmental justice, for example, topics that in the past did

not bother sociologists who work with inequality. Contemporary conditions

present challenges that make evident the complexity of social relationships

and expose our theoretical and methodological limitations (Scalon and San-

tos, 2010). We should ask ourselves, as Pakulski and Waters (1996) have

already done, if classes are dead. At least, we must consider the death

of classes in the way we traditionally understood them which is before the

fragmentation and diversification brought on by contemporaneity. We mustbe attentive to the rapid mutations of contemporary society that deeply

threaten sedimented concepts that no longer help us comprehend social

phenomena.

This is why it is important to reflect on stratification as a field of

study. Despite its great contributions to describing income disparities and

class inequality, little has been done to identify the causes of such dispari-

ties and inequality. More specifically, what is lacking are the political and

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cultural dimensions, values, understandings and perceptions on inequality

that influence lifestyles, changes to the stratification structure and acquir-

ing status, and also delineate social agents place in social life. In this field of

knowledge almost no space is provided for agency, which makes it difficult

to observe and explain change in social life and in the system of opportu-

nities. I would, therefore, like to conclude by pointing out these gaps and

limitations within stratification studies, which is still largely trapped in a

generalizing perspective unable to grasp the growing complexity of social

life and has tended to reproduce the same analytical format from the 1970s

and 1980s. This kind of perspective may be adequate for economic studies,but is insufficient for sociological analysis.

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