The rise of the middle class in Brazil, 1850–1950

As was the case in the first decade of twenty-first century, between 1850 and 1950, Brazil experienced episodes of fast economic growth with an annual GDP per capita growth rate of 2 percent. However, by contrast to our understanding of recent developments in the economy of Brazil, we know little about the evolution of the Brazilian middle class over that period. Based on social tables and a new middle-class index, this article explores, for the first time, the trajectory of the Brazilian middle class from a historical perspective. It shows that moderate growth together with a rigid social hierarchy made unfeasible the rise of the middle class during the nineteenth century. Its emergence took place during the first decades of the twentieth century with the development of industry and the modernization and expansion of non-manual sectors. Its consolidation, however, was ultimately frustrated under the Vargas regime (1930–1945) in a climate of rapid economic growth but also of increasing inequality and social repression.