Brazil

• Seventh largest economy in the world and the leading economic power in Latin America.
• Increase in GDP per capita from US$4874 in 2007 to US$5823 in 2014.
• services make up 69% of GDP, industry 25% and agriculture 6%.
• Brazil is moving rapidly through the demographic transition with decline crude birth rate and ageing population.
• a net migration loss of half a million in each of the 4 year periods 2000-04 and 2005-09, but this slowed to 190000 between 2010 and 2014 (via World Bank).
• Increased migration between Brazil and its neighbouring counties, especially Mercosur members, but also Chile and the Andrean states.
• A slowing down of emigration of lower skilled economic migrants to the USA.
• Strong and continuing internal migration especially from the northeast to the cities of the southeast.
• a rise in the number of international labour migrants attracted by the construction industry for the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics Game.
• Increased emigration of highly skilled workers to Europe, USA and Japan.
• Strong and continuing internal migration especially from the northeast to the cities of the southeast.
• In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Europeans (German, Italian and Portuguese) migrated to work in agriculture, especially coffee cultivation.
• Approximately 6 million Africans were forcibly taken from countries like Angola, Mozambique, Benin, Togo and Ghana and made to work in Brazil between 1550 and 1850 on sugar cane plantations as part of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
• the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was ran by European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark.
• Economic migrants from Europe (roughly 1.9 million) were welcomed by Brazilian society, as it worked to replace the enslaved labour forces.
• Brazilian society also wanted to take steps towards ‘whitening’ their population during the late 1800s, so accepted European immigrants.
• 30% of total migration admissions were from Japanese migrants in 1932 to 1935.
• The Brazilian government enforced immigrant assimilation by forcing them to learn Portuguese and prohibiting the production of newspapers and magazines that were not in Portuguese (1953)
• After World War 1, 2.1 million Europeans (Italy, Poland, Russia and Romania) immigrated to Brazil.
• The first group of Japanese migrants arrived in the country in 1908 in the state of São Paulo to work in coffee plantations.
• Brazil was a former colony of Portugal, and today the Portuguese government still gives special status to Brazilian migrants.
• For economic migrants, Portugal is a gateway for entry into the EU.
• Migrant remittances are an important economic factor for many families.
• Portugal and Brazil share a language and an ancestry, making assimilation easier.
• Highly skilled Brazilians are increasingly finding opportunities to work in the USA especially in the service sector.
• Many thousands of low-skilled Brazilian economic migrants working in the USA send remittances back home.
• The USA has negotiated agreements with Brazil regarding agriculture, trade, finance, education and defence.
• USAID gives support to Brazil in many environmental projects, such as training Xavante to protect their tribal lands from forest fire, or assisting the Brazilian government in designing and implementing laws concerning forest governance and management.
• the National Immigration Council for Brazil enables Haitian immigrants to obtain visas easily, thereby reducing their vulnerability to trafficking networks.
• the Haitian earthquake in 2010 displaced 1.5 million people, with many travelling to Brazil.
• the number of Haitian immigrants grew from 1681 in 2010 to 11072 in 2013, with this number increasing as Haitians escape poverty and political instability.
• Many Haitians work low-skilled jobs in agriculture in the southeast of Brazil, or in factories in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catrina.
• There is prejudice and discrimination in the labour market, especially against black and indigenous people, which impedes economic, political and social development.
• Inequalities have a spatial perspective with poverty concentrated in rural areas and favelas.