Dictionary.com defines a devloping country as a country that is poor and whose citizens are mostly agricultural workers but that wants to become more advanced socially and economically. Because the scope of this paper is to discuss the population of Brazil, I will simply state that “There is a wide gap between rich and poor, but the World Bank has praised the country for progress in reducing social and economic inequality.” (BBC News, 2012) Brazil is quickly becoming and economic power but it still has a very large poverty rate.
The Brazilian population has increased over 12% 190.73 million people from 2000 t0 2010. This was actually "lower than the 1990 to 2000 period, when Brazil 's population increased 15 percent, said the census released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)." (Global Times.cn, 2010) Most of the population of Brazil live in Rio and Sao paulo, which is around 80.3 million people. The IBGE carried out a census in 2010 that found that the number of Brazilian women surpassed the number of men in 3.9 million, and the country now has a proportion of 95.9 men for every 100 women.
Over the past 50 years the fertility rate in Brazil has gone from an average six children per woman to an average of two three. In our discussion thread, we talked about alternatives to population control and i brought up the effects of empowering women on the fertility rate. The sudden shift in urbanization of the country in recent years has provided evidence that it is more expensive for larger families to sustain themselves. This has in turn produced a very large poverty rate.
The infant mortality rate is very low regardless of the poverty rate however. Since 1990, Brazil has been able to cut infant mortality rates by 73 percent. “Cutting the rate in 2011 to 16 deaths per thousand children under the age of five.” (brasil.gov.br, 2012) According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, about R$ 3.3 billion (US$ 1.63 billion) has been invested since last year in the Stork Network, which integrates assistance in 4,759 Brazilian municipalities. The program, which combines measures that provide comprehensive care for pregnant mothers and their babies, created 348 neonatal beds and reclassified 86 more beds in 2011. Brazil’s government backed the ideals of their medical community to provide comprehensive and constant training of health professionals and made significant investments in primary care and the strengthening of maternal and child health services which contributed to the reduction of maternal and infant mortality.
The biggest contributing factor to Brazil’s large population is immigration. “The Brazilian economy has been growing during the recent years against the background of the ongoing crisis in the USA, Europe and Japan. The Portuguese make the largest group of legal migrants in Brazil today. The list continues with natives of Bolivia, Paraguay and China. The Bolivians make the largest group of illegal migrants - 40 percent (according to the amnesty in 2009).”
REFERENCES
BBC News - Brazil country profile. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1227110.stm
Brazil’s population grows 12% in past 10 years: census - GlobalTimes. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.globaltimes.cn/world/americas/2010-11/597739.html
Brazil surpasses the un millennium development goal for infant mortality reduction - Portal Brasil. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http://www.brasil.gov.br/para/press/press-releases/september-2012/brazil-surpasses-the-un-millennium-development-goal-for-infant-mortality-reduction/br_model1?set_language=en
Brazil to become another center of world immigration - English pravda.ru. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/28-11-2011/119761-brazil-0/
References: BBC News - Brazil country profile. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1227110.stm Brazil’s population grows 12% in past 10 years: census - GlobalTimes. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.globaltimes.cn/world/americas/2010-11/597739.html Brazil surpasses the un millennium development goal for infant mortality reduction - Portal Brasil. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http://www.brasil.gov.br/para/press/press-releases/september-2012/brazil-surpasses-the-un-millennium-development-goal-for-infant-mortality-reduction/br_model1?set_language=en Brazil to become another center of world immigration - English pravda.ru. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/28-11-2011/119761-brazil-0/