Lifestyle

Lifestyles by Iceman 10 and Iceman 2

Mr. Cardozo, the Graded Business Manager

Introduction: Lifestyles in Brazil can bring up many different questions about the Brazilian society. The question we are answering is: Are the lifestyles in Brazil the same as the lifestyles in the Graded society? We chose this question to learn more about all the types of lifestyles that are had here in Brazil- like the poor or rich, the jobs, and the lifetime of the population in Brazil compared to the Graded society.

Lifestyles: Some people in Brazil work in hospitals, schools, offices and financial services but still there are some people that work in much harder things and get paid less. While Brazil is developing its economic base there are still a large number of people employed in primary industries such as farming. Primary jobs are jobs that involve getting raw materials from the natural environment like mining, farming and fishing.
Most people in Brazil are employed in tertiary industries. Tertiary jobs are jobs involve providing a service like teaching and nursing. One reason for this is because of the growth of Brazil as a tourist destination. Can you believe that there are children in Brazil that work like a adult should? About 2 million, or 14.3 percent of children between 10 and 13 years of age, are working. 1,300 children working in the footwear industries! That doesn’t only happen in the northwest of Brazil, it also happens here in São Paulo. Did you ever see those kids selling candy? That is considered a job too. Those kids practice their whole life selling candy or entertaining you in some way like juggling. It looks like there is a very low population doing this but its a lot larger than you think.

Death rate: One of the reasons that my group and I chose to look at lifestyles was because of the death rate in Brazil. The death rate started to fall in the 1940s because of the expanding public health system, urbanization, and sanitation. In Brazil, several babies die when they are born. This is called the Life Expectancy at Birth. Out of 100% babies in Brazil, only 71, 41% are born alive in a year. The cause of the death of the babies is the because of the place where the mothers live, food that they eat, and be the hospital they are born in with medicines. In the age of 15 to 44 years-old men, Brazil along with Thailand, Kazakhstan and the Philippines, had the highest male death rates. It was 35% out of 100% in one year. Some of the causes of the death among young men and men in Brazil are homicide, accidents, suicide, cancer diseases of the circulatory system, chronic liver diseases, and cirrhosis.

Economy: In Brazil, there are a great difference between poor and rich. One of the examples is the favela. The number of poor people in a country and the average quality of life depend on how equal or not equal monthly payment is distributed across the population. In Brazil, the richest people receive 30 times more money than the poorest people. A Brazilian worker who makes minimum money ($84 a month) would need to work 8,928 years saving every penny before being able to get his own private plane. A plane in Brazil cost $9 million reais. Brazilian poor have become better since the introduction of the Plano Real. “This was a federal program introduced on July 1, 1994. It was created to strengthen Brazilian currency. In 1997, the percentage of Brazilians below the poverty line had fallen from 33.4% to 25.5%. The worst year to the poor in Brazil was in the end of the 70s. The top 1$ of Brazilians, with 14% of the nation's wealth, has more money than the poorer 50%.The IPEA researchers criticize those who defend the idea that you cannot have social justice without economic growth, and believe that only a program to redistribute income would work in face of the immense gap between the rich and the poor. According to their estimate, the government would need to apply $16.5 billion a year to help 50 million poor Brazilians—almost one third of its 160 million people population.Brazil has created five types of social groups in the country, the indigent (24 million people), the poor (30 million), the almost poor (60 million), the middle class (50 million), and the rich (2 million)” (Brazil.com)

Primary Sources:The person who my partner and I interviewed was Mr.Cardozo . He is the business Manager at Graded. He takes care of the cafeteria and other things. He has been working as a business manager here at Graded for about seven years. We interviewed him to know about the difference between the lifestyle of people in Brazil and people at Graded. We learned from him that there is a huge difference between both places. Lifestyles at Graded he said that all of the people at Graded were either rich or upper class but about 99% are rich and 1% is upper class. But in Brazil, it is way different. He said that about 60¨% of the population was poor, 28% are upper class, and only 2% are rich and that is in the big cities only! He also gave another example, which was that about 20% of people live in farms far away from a city and 80% live in the big cities. Those 20% are very poor and the other 80% are, like I said, 60% poor, 28% are upper class and only 2% is rich. He also gave one last example, is that there are only about 3-4 black Brazilians in our whole school but in Brazil about 45% of the population is black Brazilian and the white or others are 55%. He said that usually black people are usually poorer than whites or others. That doesn’t mean whites are superior to black it is because that is just the way it is.

Another thing that we asked that is kind of related to lifestyle is the economy between Brazil and Graded. Graded and Brazil are also alike in some ways. For example, if the inflation in Brazil increases, the inflation in Graded also goes up. The same thing happens if the inflation in Brazil goes down, the inflation in Graded also goes down. If there is no G.P.D no product can be produced which happens in Brazil and Graded. Here are some of the differences. The security in Brazil is obviously greater than the security in Graded. The government is the one who creates roads. In Graded, what is usually made to construct is the payment per month and the entrance fee. Another thing that helps our school too are the donations. For example, did you know that 50% of the art center at our school was paid by donations. Well, as you have seen saw, I proved to you that there are many differences or similarities in Brazil’s and Graded’s economy and lifestyle.

We also interviewed our class to see what the students felt. The question that we asked here was, “ How many people do you know agree with the way the government in Brazil acts?” There are 10 out of 10 people in the class who know 0-2 people who do not agree how the government in Brazil acts. This means that 100% of the people do not agree how the Brazilian government acts. I think that we kids do not like the Brazilian government because of the rumors that are in T.V. and because of what our parents say about the government. For example, there parents say that the government is changing Brazil in a bad way. Another reason is that the kids see what is happening in Brazil like the PCC and the burning of buses.In Graded school 100% of the kids disagree the way the government in Brazil acts.

Conclusion:We got our information from three different types of sources. One of them was books, for example the Encyclopedia, the internet and finally from Mr. Cardozo, the business manager at Graded School. Our sub question was, “ Are the lifestyles in Brazil the same as the lifestyles in Graded Society?” We came to the conclusion that they are totally different. We think that because according to Mr. Cardozo, eighty percent of the total population of Brazil including the big cities and farms are poor. In Graded, only two percent is poor or middle class, and ninety-eight percent is rich. We found in the internet we found almost the same information that Mr. Cardozo gave us. We also learned that jobs in Brazil are very hard to find and in some places they pay a lot less than the places like São Paulo. They will often pay you maximum 300-450 reais per month. But you will also find a lot of people in São Paulo that don’t work at all and beg for money including some kids. In Graded, all parents have a job that pays a lot of money. As you can see, there are many differences in Brazil and Graded society, some are positive and others are negative.

Lifestyles by Iceman 10 and Iceman 2

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