POPULATION-BRAZIL: New Census to Paint Detailed National Portrait

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 2 2000 (IPS) - Brazil has launched its ten-yearly census of the population, asking more questions than ever in an attempt to create a detailed portrait of the country, with more precise data on minority and vulnerable populations, such as women, children, blacks and people with disabilities.

This census, with an estimated price-tag of 500 million ‘reais’ (278 million dollars), will be “the biggest and the best” of such surveys conducted in the country since 1872, predicted Sergio Besserman, president of the governmental Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

The total number of inhabitants in Brazil will be announced in December, and will be the first time the tally is released the same year as the census, while data from specific categories of questions, such as religion, will be ready for the public in January 2001.

The previous population census was conducted in 1991, but its final results were not announced until 1997.

New technological resources mean rapid processing of the data that officials began collecting Tuesday, said president Fernando Henrique Cardoso as he formally launched Census 2000. He immediately filled out his census questionnaire in Brasilia.

The team of 190,000 census-takers will visit 42 million homes, where some 167 million people live, according to IBGE estimates based on annual sample surveys of a limited number of residences.

In 4.5 million homes, the Brazilians being counted will fill out a full questionnaire, in which they detail, for example, the level of schooling and whether family members have some form of disability.

For the first time, the national survey will attempt to count the number of people with problems involving vision, hearing or movement, and the extent of the loss of these abilities.

In the education category, in addition to measuring literacy and level of schooling, census-takers will also tally the number of children in day-care and pre-school in the country’s network of private and public institutions.

With the return to democracy after the 21-year dictatorship ended in 1985, a broad discussion began as to what questions should be included in the census on issues never before touched, such as gender and ethnicity.

Before the census of 1991, which began a year late, non- governmental organisations launched a publicity campaign to encourage the population, especially Afro-Brazilian communities, to identify their ethnicity when answering the survey questions.

In Brazil’s official statistics, this issue is treated in a question on “colour or race.” The current census maintains the four “traditional” options of black, white, yellow and brown, and has added “indigenous.”

The ambiguous category “brown,” for indicating mixed ethnicities with some amount of African ancestry, hides distortions and prejudices, wit formula appeared for more accurately categorising the ethnic condition of people of African descent in a country that is highly racially mixed.

In a sample survey done in 1976, pollsters left the question of colour open, but the respondents prbate,” conceded Jocimar Araujo, sociologist and adviser for the National Office Zumbi dos Palmares, a Brasilia-based organisation of the Afro-Brazilian movement, dedicated to fighting racism with the help of its team of attorneys.

No better formula appeared for more accurately categorising the ethnic condition of people of African descent in a country that is highly racially mixed.

In a sample survey done in 1976, pollsters left the question of colour open, but the respondents prTXACK stion of colour open, but the respondent