ABSTRACT
Brazil has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. A gradual political abertura (opening), starting in the late 1970s, led through a series of incremental steps to the end of the dictatorship in 1984 and the re-democratization of the country. However, the ‘economic miracle’ of the 1970s also gave way to triple digit inflation during the 1980s, then to stagnation and a series of devaluations of the currency. Efforts to curb inflation culminated in the Plano Real (Real Plan) established by Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1994, but this did not solve the problem of economic growth, which remained low during the 1990s, resulting in increasing unemployment and inequality over the decade. For the urban poor, marginality has been transformed from a myth to a reality as high hopes for a better life for their children have been dashed by a series of barriers. Brazil continues to be one of the most economically unequal countries in the world with the top 10 per cent of the population earning 50 per cent of the national income, while about 34 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.
