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The Metamorphosis of Marginality: Four Generations in the Favelas of Rio de

Janeiro
Janice E. Perlman
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2006 606: 154
DOI: 10.1177/0002716206288826
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This article is based on a four-generational study of
residents in three squatter communities (favelas) in Rio de
Janeiro from 1968 to 2003. It shows how the marginal-
ization of the urban poor has deepened over the past
thirty-five years through drug-related violence, the failure
of democracy to deliver on its promise of voice for the dis-
enfranchised, the stigma of place and race, the increase in
unemployment, and the inability to translate educational
gains into concomitant income or occupational gains.
Despite significant improvements in consumption of col-
The lective urban services, household goods, and schooling,
few have been successful enough to move into “good
neighborhoods” or into professional jobs. Gang violence
Metamorphosis creates a pervasive sense of fear and diminishes the
social capital of the communities. Despite the promise of
of Marginality: the end of the dictatorship in 1984, favela residents feel
they are more excluded. Yet they still have hope that
Four their lives will improve in the future.
Keywords: marginality; urban poverty; favelas; violence;

Generations democracy; exclusion; barriers to livelihoods;
intergenerational transmission of poverty
in the Favelas
of Rio de
Janeiro B razil has changed dramatically over the past
thirty years. A gradual political opening, start-
ing in the late 1970s, led through a series of incre-
mental steps to the end of dictatorship in 1984
and the redemocratization of society. However,
the “economic miracle” of the 1970s gave way to
triple-digit inflation during the 1980s, then stag-
By nation and a series of devaluations of the national
JANICE E. PERLMAN currency. Efforts to curb inflation culminated in
the Real Plan (Plano Real) of 1993, but this action
NOTE: Among the funding institutes of this research

are the World Bank, the Tinker Foundation, the Fullbright
Commission, DFID/DPU, the Dutch Trust Fund, and
the Starwood Foundation, plus in-kind support from
the Mega-Cities Project and Trinity College. I would
also like to acknowledge Professors Carlos Vaiuer and
Pedro Abramo at IPPUR/UFRJ and their graduate
students, Flavia Braga, Teresa Farinha, and Andrea
Cunha, for their help in Phase I. This article likewise
owes a debt of gratitude to the Phase II Research Team
in Rio de Janeiro composed of Graziella Moraes, Sonia
Kalil, Lia Rocha, and Josinaldo Aleixo with the help of
Edmiere Exaltação and the methodological guidance of
Professor Ignacio Cano.
DOI: 10.1177/0002716206288826
154 ANNALS, AAPSS, 606, July 2006
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MARGINALITY 155
did not solve the problem of economic growth, which remained low throughout the
1990s, bringing about rising unemployment and greater inequality over the decade.
For the urban poor, marginality was increasingly transformed from a myth to a real-
ity as high hopes for a better life were dashed by new structural barriers (Perlman
2004). Brazil continues to be one of the most unequal countries in the world, with
the top 10 percent of the population earning 50 percent of the national income and
some 34 percent of all people living below the poverty line.
This article is based on longitudinal survey data, life histories, and participant
observation conducted in three low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro. The
data were initially collected by the author in 1968 to 1969 and then updated approx-
imately thirty years later (1999-2003). The trajectories of families and individuals
were followed from the fishing and agricultural villages in which they originated into
Rio’s squatter settlements (favelas) or into unserviced subdivisions (loteamentos) in
the three areas of Rio de Janeiro where poor people could live in 1969. Three fave-
las were represented in the original sample: Catacumba, in the wealthy South Zone
(which has since been removed and its residents relocated to more distant public
housing); Nova Brasilia, in the industrial North Zone (now a battleground between
police and drug traffickers); and Duque de Caxias, a peripheral municipality in the
Fluminense Lowlands (Baixada Fluminense). The location of these communities as
well as the housing projects to which the Catacumba residents were sent—
Guapore-Quitungo and City of God (now famous because of the movie adaptation
of the book by Paulo Lins)—are shown in Figure 1.
Despite three decades of government efforts to address urban poverty in
Brazil—first by attempting to eradicate the favelas and then by seeking to
upgrade and integrate them into the city—the number of poor neighborhoods
and people living within them continued to grow. Whereas there were approxi-
mately three hundred favelas in Rio in 1969, there are now twice as many. Not
only have favelas increased in number and size; in many cases they have merged
to form vast contiguous agglomerations or “complexes” of very poor settlements
connected across adjacent hillsides, as shown in maps of Figure 2.
The census data compiled in Table 1 indicate that in every decade from 1950
to 2000, Rio’s favela population grew much more rapidly than the city as a whole,
with the sole exception of the 1970s, when favela eradication programs forcibly
removed more than one hundred thousand people to public housing projects or
sent them back to the countryside. Most striking is the period 1980 to 1990, when
Janice E. Perlman is currently on a Guggenheim Award, finishing a book on the dynamics of

urban poverty in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro from 1969 to 2005. She is a visiting scholar in the
Urban Planning Program at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation of
Columbia University. She is well known as the founder and president of the Mega-Cities
Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shortening the lag time between ideas and imple-
mentation by sharing approaches that work among innovative leaders—from all sectors—in
the world’s largest cities. She was a tenured professor in the Department of City and Regional
Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at University of California,
Santa Cruz, New York University, Hunter College, and Trinity College as well as the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Getulio Vargas
Foundation, and IBAM (the Brazilian Institute of Municipal Administration).
156 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
FIGURE 1
LOCATION OF SAMPLE NEIGHBORHOODS
IN METROPOLITAN RIO DE JANEIRO
the overall city growth rate dropped to just 8 percent but the favela population
surged by 41 percent. After 1990, when the city’s growth rate leveled off just
below 7 percent, the favela population continued to grow by 24 percent, produc-
ing an all-time-high concentration of people living in concentrated poverty in the
year 2000. Whereas only 7 percent of Rio’s population lived in favelas in 1950,
five decades later the figure had grown to 19 percent: one in five people lived
under conditions of concentrated urban poverty.
Inspection of the maps shown in Figure 2 also clearly shows that favela growth
has not been spread evenly throughout the metropolitan region. This fact is also
evident in Table 2, which shows changes in the number and size of favelas in dif-
ferent geographic zones of metropolitan Rio from 1980 to 1992. Whereas the
favela population increased by 108 percent in the West Zone (in response to the
availability of land, the construction of new transportation lines, and the bur-
geoning of upper-class developments in zones of origin, such as Barra de Tijuca),
the rate of favela growth was just 21 percent and 14 percent, respectively, within
the already consolidated favela areas of the South and North.
The fact that favela growth outpaced city growth initially reflected the influx of
poor migrants from the countryside, notably from the Northeast, Minas Gerais, and
EVOLUTION OF FAVELAS IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 1920-1990
FIGURE 2
157
TABLE 1
POPULATION GROWTH IN THE FAVELAS OF RIO DE JANEIRO, 1950-2000
Favelas as
Population Population Percentage Growth Rate Growth Rate
Year of Favelas of Rio of Rio of Favelas (%) of Rio (%)
1950 169,305 2,337,451 7.2

1960 337,412 3,307,163 10.2 99.3 41.5
1970 563,970 4,251,918 13.3 67.1 28.6
1980 628,170 5,093,232 12.3 11.4 19.8
1990 882,483 5,480,778 16.1 40.5 7.6
2000 1,092,958 5,857,879 18.7 23.9 6.9
TABLE 2
GROWTH IN THE NUMBER AND SIZE OF FAVELAS
IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 1980-1992
Growth Growth
Geographic Zone 1980 1992 Rate (%) 1980 1992 Rate (%)
South 25 26 4 65,596 79,651 21

North 22 25 14 49,042 55,768 14
West 86 195 127 94,002 195,546 108
Suburbs 194 270 39 416,307 532,340 28
Central 45 57 27 92,119 99,488 8
Total 372 573 27 717,066 916,793 34
the state of Rio itself. But today, rates of rural-urban migration are much lower, and
the West Zone is the only reception area for significant numbers of newcomers
to the city. In general, the growth of favelas no longer reflects the arrival of poor
families from the countryside but stems from a combination of natural increase and
growing downward social mobility. Family sizes are larger in favelas than in the rest
of the urban population, despite the fact that favela families have been getting
steadily smaller with each generation in the city (see Lloyd-Sherlock 1997). At the
same time, downward economic mobility is typically accompanied by residential
movement, either voluntary or involuntary, from formal to irregular favela housing.
Method
In each of the three favelas, a total of 200 randomly selected men and women
sixteen to sixty-five years of age were interviewed in 1969, along with a nonran-
dom sample of 50 community leaders chosen by position and/or reputation. In my
TABLE 3
DISPOSITION OF ORIGINAL 1969 INTERVIEWEES: RANDOM AND
LEADERSHIP SAMPLES AT TIME OF FOLLOW-UP SURVEY (2001)
Favela Leadership
Current Traits Samples Samples Sample
Disposition at follow-up
Located (%) 36 60 41
Living (%) 15 35 19
Decreased (%) 21 25 22
Original sample (n) 600 150 750
Location of located respondents
Favela (%) 37 11 30
Housing project (%) 25 21 24
Neighborhood (%) 34 61 42
Located respondents (n) 216 91 307
follow-up survey thirty years later, I found current information on 487 of the orig-
inal participants and was able to conduct 307 new interviews with them and their
children. Locating them was difficult as last names were not recorded in the base-
line survey to protect the anonymity of respondents (1968 to 1969 was the height
of the dictatorship and people were fearful of attribution). In the case of commu-
nity leaders, however, I was able to locate 61 percent of respondents because last
names had been used, given that these people had already been publicly known.
In Catacumba, I had expected to encounter the lowest rate of success in find-
ing original interviewees since forced eviction in 1970 scattered families across
several distant housing projects. However, this district turned out to have the
highest follow-up rate, owing to the strong sense of solidarity created through
years of struggle for collective urban services in the favela and the long battle
against eviction. In contrast, the lowest relocation success rate occurred among
interviewees from Duque de Caxias—particularly those who owned private lots.
Contrary to the belief that home ownership creates more stable settlements (de
Soto 2000), I found much higher turnover among those living in the loteamentos
of Caxias than in the favelas themselves. This outcome probably reflects the fact
that many of the people interviewed in the loteamentos were renters and not
owners, and more of them consequently moved out. In addition, they also had
weaker social ties and fewer community organizations, so that neighbors and
local social organizations had no ongoing contact with those who had left.
Table 3 provides information on the sample. I was able to determine the where-
abouts of 41 percent of the total sample (307 out of 750), 36 percent of the ran-
dom sample (216 out of 600) and 60 percent of the leadership sample (91 out of
150). About 5 percent of the total sample (6 people of the random and 9 people
of leadership) are living in loteamentos, mostly in Caxias, and not shown here. In
those cases where I tracked down respondents who had died, I compiled their life
histories by interviewing a spouse or eldest child.
Although it may seem impressive to find 41 percent of the study participants
so many decades after the original research, the low response rate does raise the
question of what happened to the other 59 percent and the degree to which
empirical findings can be generalized. It is conceivable that I found only the
poorest because the better off had moved away or perhaps that only the most suc-
cessful were interviewed because the poorest had been forced into homelessness,
living on the streets or under bridges where they could not be located. I there-
fore spent considerable effort testing for bias, using 1969 data to compare the
characteristics of those I found and those I did not.
Dividing the 1969 sample into those located and not located, I found no sig-
nificant difference between those located with respect to income, education,
household goods, people per room, or a summary socioeconomic index that com-
bined these measures. Nor were there any differences in terms of race, occupa-
tion, or services available within the household. Across the two groups, I likewise
found no differences with respect gender or age, although women and the
youngest cohort were somewhat overrepresented among those found alive, as one
might expect given their higher probabilities of survival. Overall, Caxias was
underrepresented and those with stronger social networks were overrepresented,
which is not surprising given the chain-referral methods used to find those who
had moved out of the original communities. Subjects who participated in local
associations were more integrated into the community and tended to have larger
families, making them easier to track down through personal networks.
Where and How the Respondents Live

If poverty were chronic and social mobility limited, one would expect to find
a majority of people living in favelas in 1968 to 1969 would still be living there in
2003. As the bottom panel of Table 3 indicates, however, this proved true for only
a third of the original sample; another 27 percent were found in the public hous-
ing projects to which they were removed in 1970. Although this relocation was
perceived to be highly detrimental at the time of the move, over the longer term
it seemed to improve most peoples’ lives.
The most encouraging finding was that 40 percent of those who lived in fave-
las at the time of the original study had become renters or owners of dwellings in
legitimate neighborhoods by the time of the follow-up. Though only a handful
made it all the way to the affluent South Zone, many bought land in peripheral
areas of the city and constructed homes. Others managed to rent apartments in
less expensive but still established parts of the city. In a random sample of the chil-
dren of respondents, the pattern was similar: 35 percent were living in a favela, 21
percent in a housing project, and 44 percent in an established neighborhood.
The community leaders did even better than the favela residents in general: only
13 percent remained in favelas, whereas 32 percent were in public housing projects,
and more than half (55 percent) were in established neighborhoods. In many cases,
these leaders bought large lots in distant areas such as the outskirts of Niteroi and
Caxias or less settled areas in Jacarepaguá, Bangu, and Campo Grande. On these
lots, the leaders built family compounds. These structures are generally not visible
from nearby roads, and it was thus hard to find them. Once one passed through a
metal gate into the driveway, however, there was often a little garden area and
veranda inside, along with a series of attached and separate houses, the main
dwelling usually being two or three stories high. The houses were usually self-
constructed over time, just as the original favelas were. As families acquired capital,
it was put into new amenities: tiling for the kitchen and bathroom or furnishings for
the bedroom. Many families said that they made major home improvements just
after the Real Plan was introduced, when Brazilian currency was pegged to the
dollar and its purchasing power was suddenly much greater.
The move from favela to established neighborhood constituted a major shift in
social status as well as geographic location. In moving out of the favelas, respon-
dents traded off greater distance from the center and higher costs of rent, land,
and building materials against the stigma and danger (but convenience and low
cost) of favela residence. Some of the families I interviewed who had left favelas
to escape violence and to insulate their children from the drug economy reported
feeling very lonely and isolated in the apartments they rented on the periphery,
and they perceived themselves to be financially squeezed by higher monthly rent
and utility bills.
How are the people originally interviewed living today? Owing to the advanced
age of the 1969-era respondents, a majority by the 1999 to 2000 period (60 percent)
were living on federal retirement payments, receiving roughly one “minimum
salary” per month (equivalent to about US$90). In many cases, this pension is the
main source of income for the entire household, which may consist of several
unemployed children and younger grandchildren. The pension is sometimes sup-
plemented by charitable contributions, such as the cesta basica, a basic food basket
offered by religious groups, as well as by scrounging (as when people gather left-
over produce from local market stands).
Under the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a number
of innovative antipoverty programs were established to provide small cash trans-
fers to poor families in exchange for keeping each child aged seven to fourteen
in school, giving them required inoculations, and proving regular medical check-
ups. An array of social programs (such as the bolsa escola [school grant] and oth-
ers) were recently consolidated under the Family Grant Program and expanded
by the Labor Party government, led by former radical Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
This program offers a debit card for eligible families and provides an average
monthly benefit of about US$24 (see Dugger 2004). Such programs play
an important role in the survival of these families, which is why theories
of “advanced marginality,” which assume a retrenchment of the welfare state
(cf. Wacquant 1996), do not hold true for the case of Brazil (Perlman 2004). Indeed,
within Brazil the welfare state is expanding.
Current Economic Status

To look more closely at the relative well-being of respondents, I created an
index of socioeconomic status (SES) using income, education, household goods,
and persons per room. This index yielded a summary score for each person that
was then used to classify him or her as being of high, medium, or low status.
From the literature on chronic poverty, the feminization of poverty, and race-
based poverty, I expected to find that race and gender, especially the race and
gender of the household head, would be strongly associated with SES. Indeed,
back in 1969, race was significantly correlated with SES. Whereas 42 percent of
whites were of high SES, the figure was 34 percent for mulattos (pardos) and just
6 percent for blacks.
In the follow-up survey, however, neither race nor gender was associated
strongly with SES, even among household heads. Whereas 28 percent of whites
were in the top SES category, the figure was 41 percent for mulattos and 33 per-
cent for blacks. With respect to gender, 24 percent of males and 37 percent of
females were in the high-SES category. Though not a statistically significant dif-
ference, the latter was opposite the direction predicted. In addition, 39 percent
of male-headed households versus 31 percent of female-headed households were
in the top SES group (a difference that was again not significant statistically).
Among more than eighty variables considered, only two were consistently
associated with SES: the type of community the person currently occupied (favela,
project, or neighborhood) and residential mobility (remaining in the original favela
versus moving). As Figure 3 shows, 59 percent of favela dwellers were in the lowest
income class at the time of the follow-up, but only 22 percent of those in projects and
23 percent of those in neighborhoods fell into this class. Four times as many people
living in established neighborhoods were in the top SES category (44 percent) com-
pared with favelas (10 percent). It appears, however, that those in projects are also
better off once residential mobility is taken into account. Among those who never
moved, only 18 percent were in the high SES group, compared with 38 percent who
went to a project and stayed there. It thus appears that the “chronically poor” were
composed differentially of people who lived in a favela all of their lives and never left.
Intragenerational Mobility
Some of the respondents had significantly improved their levels of well-being
by the time of the follow-up, though others had stayed the same and some even
suffered a decline in well-being. To measure socioeconomic mobility, I computed
FIGURE 3
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS OF INTERVIEWEES BY TYPE OF COMMUNITY
10%
41% 44%
31%
38% 33%
59%
22% 23%
Favela Project Neighborhood
Low Medium High
standardized measures of current and past SES, comparing each person’s SES
score in 1969 with that of 2001. Of course, this comparison yields a relative mea-
sure across just two points in time. Naturally, there could have been many ups
and downs in the intervening years, something I will consider later using life his-
tory data. For now, however, I consider only a relative comparison of people
across two fixed points in time.
Using this measure of economic mobility, I found that community leaders who
already had achieved a higher SES in 1968 experienced continued upward mobil-
ity thereafter. Likewise, those who moved out of favelas into neighborhoods dis-
played higher social as well as spatial mobility. Finally, those who remained in the
favelas had the lowest social mobiltiy, even lower than those who were forcibly
transferred into housing projects.
As with SES, the lack of any correlation between social mobility and race or
gender was striking. Once again, only two variables from among more than eighty
tested yielded a significant correlation with socioeconomic mobility. The first recon-
firms the findings reported above: there is a strong positive correlation between res-
idential status and socioeconomic mobility. Among those who changed their place of
residence, 33 percent experienced relative upward mobility, whereas only 18 percent
of those who remained in the favelas did so. Correlation does not imply causation,
of course, but what is probably true is that those who could move did so, and once
out of a favela, they experienced more life opportunities and were able to improve
their lives in multiple ways. I will return to this discussion when I consider barriers
to mobility and the stigma of favela residences, as opposed to living in the asfalto
(asphalt), a slang term often used to indicate the “legitimate” city.
The other significant predictor of economic mobility was social capital, particu-
larly membership in community groups, a finding that confirms prior theoretical
work underscoring the importance of social networks, organizational membership,
and density of social relations in achieving economic prosperity and political stabil-
ity (see Putnam 2000). The same variables have been highlighted in recent theo-
ries about the well-being of the urban poor (Wilson 1987; Sampson, Morenoff,
and Gannon-Rowley 2002). Even before the term social capital came into vogue
(cf. Coleman 1988), research had shown that mutual help through networks of rec-
iprocal exchange was a major coping and survival mechanism among poor urban
families (Stack 1974; Lomnitz 1977; Campbell 1981; Perlman 1976).
The most encouraging finding was that 40

percent of those who lived in favelas at the time
of the original study had become renters or
owners of dwellings in legitimate
neighborhoods by the time of the follow-up.
Thus, almost 60 percent of those respondents who participated in one or more

community associations, versus 17 percent of nonparticipants, experienced rela-
tive upward mobility during the period under consideration. This mobility might
be explained by the fact that participants were better off to begin with (and there-
fore had the time and resources to participate as well as to achieve mobility) or
that participants had greater levels of motivation, hope, and energy.
My data also indicate a relationship between upward economic mobility and two
other measures of social capital: the possession of friendship and kinship ties and
having relations of trust with neighbors. Among those who report many friends
and relatives in the community with whom they interact frequently, 42 percent
scored high in upward mobility, as opposed to only 23 percent among those who
were more socially isolated. In terms of trust, 47 percent of those who felt they
“could trust most or all of their neighbors” experienced upward mobility com-
pared with just 25 percent of those who said “few or none” could be trusted,
demonstrating the importance of what Sampson (2004) called “collective efficacy.”
The link between relative upward mobility and networks of reciprocity may be
weakened by the lack of family income (see Menjívar 2000). As González de la
Rocha (2006 [this volume]) points out, there has been a change in the past decades
from “the resources of poverty to the poverty of resources.” Her work suggests that
once poverty becomes endemic in a family and no one in a social network has
access to revenue, networks tend to break down because people are unable to act
reciprocally, a hypothesis that remains to be tested in the case of Rio de Janeiro.
Intergenerational Mobility
This research project, when completed, will provide data on four generations,
spanning the end of the nineteenth century into the twenty-first. In addition to
compiling detailed information about the original interviewees, I will gather data
on their parents, children, and grandchildren as well. Interviews with the grand-
children are still being completed, so comparisons here focus mainly on the orig-
inal interviewees and their children, and to a lesser extent their parents. Three
aspects of mobility will be considered: consumption, education, and occupation.
Consumption is increasingly used as an indicator of well-being, whereas
income has grown controversial. Though relatively easy to obtain and seemingly
objective and convenient, the value of income as a measure of economic status
has been challenged by social scientists who see it as flawed because of differ-
ences in purchasing power at different places in different times (Carroll 1994;
Hojman 1999). Income also disregards nonmonetary contributions to well-being
(see Graham and Pettinato 2006 [this volume]) and takes no account of assets
(Cole, Mailath, and Postlewaite 1995). This last weakness was strikingly brought
home to me many years ago when I witnessed a clerk at Sears denying a credit
card application from a well-known person who was independently wealthy. The
problem was that on his application, he had filled out a sum in the monthly
expenditure column far exceeding the sum (zero) he had entered in the column
on monthly income from present job. A question on assets was not included in
the application form.
Recent work argues that assets must be considered in measuring the economic
status not only of the middle and upper classes, but also the poor (see Shapiro
and Wolff 2001). Although the urban poor rarely have any formal savings or
financial investments, they control other fixed assets, and their “net worth” is
more accurately observed in the condition of their houses and the materials of
construction employed, as well as access to basic services and ownership of
household goods (de Soto 2000).
Data from the follow-up reveal an astonishing increase in consumption on all
of these measures over the past thirty years. Consider, for example, housing con-
ditions and infrastructure. In 1969, only around half of favela dwellers possessed
indoor bathrooms (58 percent), running water (56 percent), and electricity
(54 percent), whereas today these amenities are almost universal. This change
bespeaks a revolutionary change in the quality of life, especially for the women.
When I lived in the favelas thirty years ago, women typically had to awake well
before dawn to line up at the collective standpipe to fill five-gallon water cans,
TABLE 4
CURRENT STATUS OF THE CHILDREN OF ORIGINAL INTERVIEWEES
Characteristic Percentage
Current residence
Favela 36
Housing project 16
Neighborhood 44
Ownership of amenities
Television 98
Refrigerator 97
Blender 91
Phone or cell 88
Stereo 85
VCR 69
Washing machine 67
Microwave 30
Car 29
Computer 22
N 295
sometimes from a spigot that only flowed at a trickle. Then they had to carry it
back up the hill on their heads for morning cooking and cleaning. In terms of
housing materials, in 1969 only 43 percent had homes made of brick, whereas all
others were shacks made of scrap wood, wattle, and daub. By 2001, 94 percent
of their dwellings were of brick construction.
The consumer profile of the next generation is even more striking. Television
ownership went from 27 percent in 1969 to 98 percent among the children (in
2001), refrigerators from 38 percent to 97 percent, and stereos from 25 percent
to 85 percent. Table 4 shows that among children of the original interviewees, 88
percent had land or cell phones (only two or three people in each community had
phones in 1969); 67 percent had washing machines; 69 percent owned VCRs; 30
percent possessed microwave ovens; more than a quarter owned cars; and most
surprising of all, 22 percent had computers! In my interviews, computers were
often mentioned as a choice gift for a child’s fifteenth birthday, although parents
usually did not want them to have Internet access.
This consumption profile substantially exceeds that of the average university
professor or middle-class professional in Rio today. When I have given presenta-
tions in Rio about these data, the audience is always surprised, but those who work
on poverty in other situations in Brazil and Latin America have often expressed
to me the recent phenomenon of overconsumption relative to what income levels
would suggest. I have also noticed that the kinds of floor and wall tiling in kitchens and
bathrooms of favela homes exceed in luxury and cost that of many middle-class
TABLE 5
EDUCATIONAL AND OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY ACROSS THREE
GENERATIONS IN RIO DE JANEIRO: ORIGINAL INTERVIEWEES,
THEIR PARENTS, AND THEIR CHILDREN (IN PERCENTAGES)
Parents of Original Children of

Variable Interviewees Interviewees Interviewees
Educational level
Illiterate 79 45 6
Elementary 21 38 20
Junior high 0 14 37
High school 0 1 29
University 0 1 8
Number 384 205 293
Midcareer occupation
Professional 0 0 3
Routine nonmanual 6 20 37
Skilled manual 6 3 7
Semiskilled manual 14 24 24
Unskilled 15 44 30
Agricultural 59 9 0
N 176 204 271
apartments, as does the quality of furniture in living rooms, dining rooms, and
bedrooms. This conspicuous consumption appears to represent an attempt to
overcome the sense of exclusion and stigma that the poor feel as a result of their
residence in favelas, a stance expressed in their complaint that they are not seen
as people (gente) by the middle and upper classes.
There has also been an extraordinary revolution in literacy and education
across the generations. As seen in Table 5, 45 percent of the people interviewed
in 1969 were illiterate (mostly older members of the sample). Though this was
a huge advance over the 79 percent illiteracy rate of their parents, who were
mostly born and raised in the countryside, by the time of their children’s gener-
ation, only 6 percent remained illiterate. In contrast, 29 percent of the children
had gone to high school (compared with 1 percent of their parents and none of
their grandparents), and 8 percent went all the way to university.
Given that the Brazilian school system makes it especially difficult for the poor
to get into university, the latter figure represents an impressive achievement.
Academically competitive high schools are private, expensive, and out of reach for
most poor families. Even after completing high school, students face an expensive
preparatory course for the critical vestibular (college entrance) exam, which
determines who gets admitted to public universities. Although free, the excellent
public universities are generally accessible only to those with sufficient resources
to attend a private high school and pay for a special cursinho (preparatory course)
to study for the entrance exam.
Occupational mobility is difficult to measure given the lack of a clear hierar-
chy among job categories. For example, movement from manual to nonmanual
work may lead to higher or lower earnings and prestige. Likewise, the category
“working for oneself” includes both the highest and lowest earners. In general,
using standard job categories, I found patterns of occupational mobility that par-
alleled those of education. Upon migration to the city, the original interviewees
replaced the rural jobs of their parents with unskilled manual labor (here defined
according to the occupation held “for the longest period of one’s life.” The children
of rural-origin migrants, in turn, moved into semiskilled manual and routine non-
manual jobs. Thus, 62 percent of the parents of the original sample and 13 percent
of the original interviewees, but none of the children, held agricultural occupa-
tions. Comparing each participant specifically with his or her own father, on aver-
age 62 percent of the original interviewees (69 percent of males and 59 percent
of females) had better jobs than their fathers.
Another way of comparing occupational levels is to look at jobs held during the
peak period of the life cycle, which I took to be approximately twenty years after
labor force entry. As jobs tend to vary over the life cycle, I compared the jobs of
original study participants and their children, as shown in the bottom panel of
Table 5. As can be seen, the children did better than their parents, a conclusion that
is easy to observe on a case-by-case basis. Compared with their parents, 66 percent
of the children had a better occupation, 19 percent had a job at the same level,
and 19 percent held a worse job.
The latter figure offers the first indication of a problem with the picture of
improving conditions of life over the generations. It suggests that educational
gains are not always reflected in occupational mobility. Thus, whereas 70 percent
of the original sample had more education than their parents, only 62 percent
ended up with better jobs. Likewise, whereas 75 percent of the children of the
original sample had more education that their parents, only 66 percent had bet-
ter jobs. Although education clearly led to improvements in occupational status,
the gains were not what one might have expected.
Part of the gap between education and achievement reflects a structural
change in the value of schooling on the job market. During the late 1960s, favela
parents would often tell their children that if they did not stay in school they
would end up as garbage collectors. In July 2003, the city opened a competition
for four hundred jobs for garbage collectors, and twelve thousand people applied.
A high school diploma was a prerequisite for application. The changing value of
education is also apparent in the differential rate of return to years of schooling
for those living in favelas and more established neighborhoods. Figure 4 shows
the returns to education for favelados and nonfavelados in Rio de Janeiro. Beyond
the first four years of school, the income gap between the two groups increases
with each additional year of schooling.
As Table 6 shows, there is a strong spatial component to earnings differentials
between favela residents and nonresidents. Earning gaps are greatest in comparison
FIGURE 4
RETURNS TO EDUCATION AMONG FAVELA AND NON-FAVELA DWELLERS
2500
2000
1500
Income
1000
500
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Years of School
Rio de Janeiro Favela Non-favela
SOURCE: Compiled by Valeria Pero from the 2000 census.

NOTE: Average income in main occupation by years in school.
TABLE 6
AVERAGE MONTHLY EARNINGS IN BRAZILIAN REALES BY GEOGRAPHIC
ZONE OF RESIDENCE IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 2000
Geographic Zone Favela Non-Favela Percentage Difference
South 437 2,476 566.6

North 361 1,284 355.7
West 368 564 153.3
Near suburb 382 880 230.4
Distant suburb 363 728 200.6
Jacarepagúa 391 896 229.2
with the high-income areas of the South Zone (Leblon, Ipanema, and
Copacabana) along with Barra. For example, in the South Zone, the average
monthly earnings of nonresidents is 567 percent greater than that of favela resi-
dents, even though favela residents in the South Zone earn more than those in
other favela areas. The smallest difference occurs in the West Zone, where non-
residents earn 153 percent more per month than those living in favelas.
The stigma of living in a favela is clearly reflected in this income differential,

which is unaffected by the “magic bullet” of education. Many youngsters reflect
this stigma when they drop out of school and enter the workforce or participate
in the drug trade. After observing the underemployment and unemployment of
older siblings and friends who remained in school, they conclude that education
is pointless. I was surprised by the number of young people, both girls and boys,
who were not in school, not working, and apparently not looking for work, but the
view that investing in education would not necessarily lead to a good job, is con-
sistent with the Pero analysis based on the Brazilian census (see Figure 4).
This problem has grown worse for the latest generation. In 1969, only 31 percent
of those in favelas reported being unemployed for more than a month, but among
their children today, 65 percent say they have experienced at least one month of
unemployment. During many of the interviews I conducted, one or several of the
adult children were hanging around the home in the middle of the afternoon on
a weekday with nothing to do. The most haunting example is an interview with
Mr. S, one of the former leaders on Nova Brasilia. He had an excellent job as a
truck driver for the Coca Cola bottling company on Avenida Itaoca, and after it
closed, he continued to drive trucks until his hearing and eyesight failed. His wife
became mentally ill, and he was reduced to selling off the large, multistory home
he had built over the years and living with his family in a small hut in the back-
yard. His was one of the only houses I visited that still had an outdoor kitchen, an
outhouse, and a pounded dirt floor. When asked about his biggest problem, he
said it was getting milk for his grandson who lives with him, along with his wife
and several other children, none of whom has an income. They all subsist on his
meager pension.
One daughter sat on the edge of the sofa during the interview. She was in her
midtwenties or early thirties and did not have a job. She told me she wanted to
be a supermarket checkout clerk and that she had gone to inquire about a job
she had heard was available. When she got to the location, she realized that she
did not have the bus fare to return, so she stayed on the bus and came directly
home. The next time, she got the money for the round-trip but was told that she
needed a carteira assinada, a type of worker document signed by a previous
employer. As she had never before worked, she did not have the necessary
papers, and they told her where to go to register. She went and filled out the
forms, and they told her to come back in two weeks. After returning several
times she still had no job, so I asked her how long ago it had been since she had
applied. She looked at her father and said, “Oh, it’s hard to say; about eight
months, I think.”
That sense of not believing it would make a difference and not even trying any-
more was simply not present in the first generation of rural-urban migrants. Their
idea was to do whatever it took to survive in the city. Another story that sticks in
my mind is that of a young man who went to see about a job as bus fare collector.
He began by saying that he found that type of work humiliating. It was fine for his
father’s generation, but he expected to do better. When he was told what the pay
would be, and he subtracted his travel and lunch costs, and the cost of the clothing
and shoes he would need to buy, his net earnings would be so low as to be virtually
insignificant. He would end up traveling three to four hours a day and working
another twelve for little or no gain. So he remained at home, “flying kites” like a
little kid, his father told me. If the father complained, the son would say, “Don’t
pressure me or I’ll join the drug trade.”
Structural Barriers to Mobility

These vignettes paint a daunting picture and suggest the presence of serious
structural barriers to economic well-being. The main ones I have identified to
date are (1) a dramatic loss of manufacturing in Rio, which has left thousands of
blue-collar workers unemployed; (2) the consolidation of the physical space of
the city and consequent reduction in construction jobs (a mainstay for unskilled
and semiskilled workers during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s); (3) the
belt-tightening of the middle class, which, along with increases in electro-domestic
appliances, fast food, and take-out services, have produced a steep reduction
in the demand for domestic services among women; (4) technological advances
that have replaced many labor-intensive jobs with a smaller number of high-
skilled positions; (5) higher educational standards for job entry due to the struc-
tural inflation of educational levels; (6) the increase in drug-related violence in
the favelas, which depressed the value of the rental and sales properties located
there; and (7) the pervasive prejudice and discrimination against favela residents,
which occurs in job markets even when applicants meet other qualifications for
employment.
The sources and degree of exclusion perceived by respondents are shown in
the top panel of Table 7. These data show the percentage of people who
responded “yes” to the question, “Is there discrimination on the basis of gender,
skin color, favela residence, overall appearance (dress, manner, etc.) place of ori-
gin, etc.?” According to these data, living in a favela is more stigmatizing than
being dark skinned or female, despite the fact that the perception of racism has
gone up from 64 percent in 1969 to 85 percent in 2001. One wonders whether
there was in fact more racial prejudice or just more awareness of it. Many non-
profit organizations have emphasized “roots” and black pride. In my sample,
more racial respondents classified themselves as darker skinned in 2001 than had
in 1969, with more saying they were black or mulatto and fewer saying they were
white than in the original interview. Racial identification is thus fluid and mal-
leable (see Telles 2004).
The issue of appearance (mode of dress, behavior, speech, etc.) came up so
frequently in the open-ended interviews that I included it on the final survey
instrument, even though it had not appeared to be important in the initial study.
According to my data, 84 percent of the respondents perceived discrimination on
the basis of how they present themselves, including their clothing or dress. A
good example comes from the interview with Dona R., who owns a clothing and
shoe store in Nova Brasilia. She lives in a nearby high-rise and is quite well off and
TABLE 7
PERCEIVED CONSTRAINTS ON SOCIAL MOBILITY AMONG CURRENT
AND FORMER FAVELA RESIDENTS IN RIO DE JANEIRO
Perceived Constraint on Social Mobility Percentage
Barriers to livelihood
Residence in favela 84
Skin color 80
Appearance 74
Origin 60
Residence in Baixada 56
Being female 53
Residence in North Zone 52
Residence in public housing 45
Whether anyone in family crime victim
Robbery 56
Mugging 46
Attack 24
Homicide 20
Attempted assault 17
Breaking and entering 15
Police extortion 15
Other extortion 7
Rape or sexual abuse 1
Whether government harms rather than helps
City council 12
City government 14
State government 15
Federal government 37
Foreign agencies 20
Most important factor for successful life
Good job or good salary 69
Good health 43
Honesty, faith, or love 35
Education 23
Good housing 11
Family 9
Money 9
Intelligence or determination 4
Having friends 3
SOURCE: Original interviews 2001.
told me how she was ignored and then mistreated when she tried to buy a new
pair of eyeglasses from an upscale optician in the center of the city. She is a light-
skinned woman perhaps fifty-five years old and quite well spoken. When I asked
her why they did not want to serve her, she said it was “because she was dressed
like someone from the North Zone,” and they had therefore assumed she was
wasting their time, as she was “clearly” too poor to afford their merchandise.
On the other end of the spectrum, young men evaluate jobs on the basis of how
many months it will take them to buy a brand-name shirt and Nike sneakers, or at
least some reasonable knockoffs. Young women, from maids to manicurists, spend
virtually their entire earnings on clothing and accessories that to them symbolize
“South Zone chic.” I spoke with one young man who had a cell phone, a pager,
and a palm pilot hanging off the waistband of his baggy shorts. I asked what he
needed all of those for. He looked sheepishly at me, and since we have known
each other since he was a young boy, he confessed that none of them worked.
They were merely fashion accessories.
Whereas in 1969 people were afraid that their homes would be destroyed and
communities removed by the government, today they are more likely to be afraid of
dying in the crossfire between drug dealers and the police, or in shootouts between
rival gangs such as the Red Command and the Third Command. During the initial
study, only 16 percent said that violence and crime were the worst things about liv-
ing in Rio, whereas today 60 percent think so. The fear for one’s personal safety is
well justified. As seen in the second panel of Table 7, the figures are indeed quite
frightening. Some 80 percent of respondents reported a robbery within their family,
two-thirds reported theft, and more than a quarter (27 percent) reported a homi-
cide, a level comparable to that observed during civil wars and much higher than in
cities of Colombia or Bolivia, the principal drug-producing countries.
One of the most perverse results of the new “sphere of fear” is the decrease in
social capital, which had been one of the few effective assets in getting out of
poverty during earlier periods. People are simply afraid to leave their homes,
making it difficult for them to maintain the social networks and interpersonal
relations from which social capital is drawn. As N., a former Catacumba resident,
now living in Guapore, put it, “To live in a place, where you do not have the lib-
erty to act freely, to come and go, to leave your house whenever you want to, to
live as any other person who is not in jail. It is imprisoning to think ‘Can I leave
now or is it too dangerous?’ Why do I have to call someone and say that they
shouldn’t come here today? It is terrible, it is oppressing. Nobody wants to live
like this.”
This withdrawal yields less use of public space, less socializing among friends
and relatives, less membership in community organizations, and less networking
in general. Table 8 compares organizational memberships reported by the original
interviewees and their children. Without exception, the children are less likely to
belong to a social organization than their parents. Whereas 49 percent of the original
interviewees belonged to a religious organization, only 38 percent of their children
did so, a difference of 11 percentage points. Likewise, membership in residents’
associations dropped by 25 points, while that of sports clubs fell by 13 points and
that of labor unions by 9 points.
As a result of these declines on social connectivity, information about informal
jobs and casual work of all types, which passed easily through the grapevine in
earlier years, has become more difficult to acquire. In response, people have
TABLE 8
CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONAL PARTICIPATION BETWEEN
ORIGINAL INTERVIEWEES AND THEIR CHILDREN
IN RIO DE JANEIRO (IN PERCENTAGES)
Kind of Organization Original Interviewees Children of Interviewees Difference
Religious association 49 38 –11

Residents association 31 6 –25
Sports club 15 2 –13
Labor union 13 4 –9
turned inward. The one exception to the trend of declining social capital is the
Evangelical Church. For many women, it is their one opportunity to get out of
the house and the one “leisure” activity they permit themselves. It becomes their
only social life. Among young men, in contrast, involvement with drug trafficking
and gang activities offer the most accessible group identification.
The bottom line for Rio’s urban poor is the

need for jobs.
Another indicator of changing times as well as the new isolation caused by the
entrance of drug dealers and their gangs is the decline in the sense of community
unity. For example, among the people interviewed in 1969, 54 percent said the
community was “very united” and another 24 percent said “fairly united”;
whereas among their children, almost none said “very united” and the majority
(55 percent) said their community “lacks unity.” This shift may indicate that fave-
las were at the high extreme of collective help and mutual aid due to the many
battles they fought and that only a third of the children (35 percent) live in fave-
las today. Personally, however, I think there is more to it. I sense that even in the
favelas there is much less unity. People feel trapped between the drug dealers
and the police and do not trust either one or their spies. They feel the police do
more harm and provide less help than the drug dealers, but they see both as dis-
respectful of life in the community. When police enter the favela on raids, they
barge into people’s homes, knock down their doors, knock them around, and
destroy their possessions, all under the pretext of searching for a hidden gang
member. The gang members provoke this by putting a gun to a resident’s head
and saying, “Hide me here in your home or I will blow your brains out.”
During the period of the dictatorship, and especially during the gradual
“opening” and return to democratic rights, it was assumed that return to the
direct vote for mayor, governor, and president—which had all been appointed
positions under the dictatorship—would give the urban poor (a substantial vot-
ing bloc) greater bargaining power and a stronger voice with which to negotiate
for community improvements. As a result, conditions of life were expected to
improve. The interviews did not bear out this expectation. When asked what had
changed since the end of the dictatorship, people seemed to agree that there had
been improvements in housing, transportation, sanitation, and access to (though
not quality of) education. At the same time, however, it was widely agreed that
access to health services, personal security, and economic conditions, as well as
exclusion and bargaining power, had gotten worse. Favela residents were deeply
disillusioned by democracy’s unfulfilled promises. They saw too much corruption
and heard too many empty campaign promises, and some even started to feel
nostalgic about the safety and relative peace during the military regime.
Perhaps the recent (2002) election of the first Labor Party president, Luiz
Inacio “Lula” da Silva, can change this attitude of disaffection. As of 2001, how-
ever, during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, people felt that the
government at all levels helped them very little and actually did harm in many
cases. As shown in the third panel of Table 7, the city and state governments were
generally seen as least harmful among governing bodies. Only 13 to 14 percent said
that city or state government did actual harm to people, in contrast to the federal
government, 37 percent viewed as harmful. Despite all of the funds invested by
the Inter-American Development Bank in a massive squatter upgrading project,
Favela-Bairro, only 3 percent said that international agencies were helpful, and
20 percent said they had harmed them.
Conclusion
What seems to be emerging is the transformation over thirty-five years from
“the myth of marginality” to “the reality of marginality” (Perlman 2004). In 1969,
there was widespread hope that the sacrifices made by rural-urban migrants
would open up wider opportunities and offer a greater degree of choice for their
children (Perlman 1976), which is one reason why the expected radicalism of the
squatters never materialized. They were not angered or frustrated by the dispar-
ities between themselves and the upper classes surrounding them in Rio because
they were comparing rosy expected futures with the daily reality of the lives they
had left in the countryside (Nelson 1969). Although their children appear to have
acquired more consumer goods and have greater access to health care and edu-
cation, they nonetheless suffer from the devaluation of education in a changed
job market, the entrenched stigma associated with favela residence, a shorter life
expectancy, and a new set of daily threats associated with pervasive violence.
The bottom line for Rio’s urban poor is the need for jobs. When asked an
open-ended question about “what is the most important factor for a successful
life,” respondents did not say better governance, land ownership, or security from
violence. As the bottom panel of Table 7 indicates, almost 70 percent of respon-
dents said flatly that what they needed was a good job. For them, only well-paid
work (whether formal or informal) would get them out of chronic poverty. The
simple fact is that no amount of housing or infrastructure upgrading and no
amount of “integrated community development” or “partnership strategic plan-
ning” can substitute for the ability to earn one’s living through honest labor. Even
young people caught up in drug dealing know that they risk early death and often
say they would not be doing these things if there were other alternatives.
More years of schooling, often seen as the panacea by policy makers, has not
significantly improved access to employment in a changing economy. The legal-
ization of land tenure, meanwhile, the great struggle of the 1960s and 1970s, now
appears to be a dead issue for squatters. In Rio, at least, they are no longer threat-
ened with eviction and have achieved de facto tenure. Despite the fact that
researchers (cf. de Soto 2000) and international organizations (the World Bank)
have lately focused on issues of land tenure (thus providing collateral for loans and
a source of capital), the fact is that Rio’s favela residents are mostly opposed to reg-
ularization of land titles. They do not want to pay property taxes or submit to
building codes, and they have little desire to use formal credit systems for loans.
For these reasons, micro lending programs recently started by the Banco
Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social in selected favelas were
largely unsuccessful, unlike similar programs implemented in other countries.
People simply feel it is too risky to put their homes at stake when they cannot
count on a steady income to repay debts. They prefer to rely on informal markets
and credit systems, despite greater risks and higher interest rates, and they
remain unconvinced of the utility of land regularization despite the many meet-
ings held by international agencies on this topic in recent years (Varley 2002).
What Brazil’s favela residents want and need most are decent jobs that pay a liv-
ing wage for steady work.
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The ANNALS of the American Academy

of Political and Social Science

The Metamorphosis of Marginality: Four Generations in the Favelas of Rio de

The online version of this article can be found at:

American Academy of Political and Social Science

Email Alerts: http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

>> Version of Record - Jun 16, 2006

Keywords: marginality; urban poverty; favelas; violence;

NOTE: Among the funding institutes of this research

154 ANNALS, AAPSS, 606, July 2006

Janice E. Perlman is currently on a Guggenheim Award, finishing a book on the dynamics of

1950 169,305 2,337,451 7.2

South 25 26 4 65,596 79,651 21

Where and How the Respondents Live

Current Economic Status

Favela Project Neighborhood

Low Medium High

The most encouraging finding was that 40

Thus, almost 60 percent of those respondents who participated in one or more

Parents of Original Children of

Rio de Janeiro Favela Non-favela

SOURCE: Compiled by Valeria Pero from the 2000 census.

Geographic Zone Favela Non-Favela Percentage Difference

South 437 2,476 566.6

The stigma of living in a favela is clearly reflected in this income differential,

Structural Barriers to Mobility

Perceived Constraint on Social Mobility Percentage

SOURCE: Original interviews 2001.

Kind of Organization Original Interviewees Children of Interviewees Difference

Religious association 49 38 –11

The bottom line for Rio’s urban poor is the

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