RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Among the poorest 40% of the Brazilian population, the feeling of overall well-being has dropped the most; for the 20% with higher incomes, the feeling is that life has actually improved.
Escarlen Moch, 34, worked for 9 years in the financial area of a boarding house in Porto Alegre. With the outbreak of the pandemic and the interruption of classes, a large part of students who rented rooms returned home, which drastically reduced the establishment’s income. In January 2021, Moch was fired. The managers claimed the institution was struggling financially.
Taken by surprise, Moch sent résumes to several companies over the next 6 months, but has not yet found a job. “Being fired, needing to send out résumes, and noting as there are few openings has made me more nervous and anxious. There are days when it is discouraging,” she says. Until she gets a new job, severance money and some savings help her pay the daily bills. “I would certainly feel happier now if I were working.”
The decrease in jobs during the pandemic led to a widespread loss of well-being in the Brazilian population. This diffuse feeling reported by Moch, discouragement, lack of job prospects, directly affected what experts define as a “feeling of happiness.”
A study by the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Center for Social Policies (FGV Social) shows that Brazilians are more unhappy during the pandemic – the happiness index, which was 6.5 points in 2019, dropped to 6.1 in 2020. The data are based on the Gallup World Poll, which measures the level of happiness in 40 countries based on questions about life satisfaction and daily emotions, on a scale of 0 to 10.
For Marcelo Neri, director of FGV Social and the study’s coordinator, the pandemic influenced the decrease in the national rate of happiness. “We are experiencing a tragedy, people’s survival is threatened and they have lost loved ones,” he says.
But even in terms of happiness, Brazil is unequal – the drop in the sense of satisfaction occurred mainly among the poorest 40% of the population. Before Covid-19, the happiness rate in this group reached 6.3; it dropped to 5.5 during the pandemic, i.e. by 13%.
Among the wealthiest 20%, happiness increased slightly, from 6.8 to 6.9. Among the income extremes of the Brazilian population, the difference in the level of satisfaction with life, which was 8% in 2019, rose to 25.5% the following year.
Unlike Moch, who during the pandemic feels unhappy due to job loss and financial instability, a young man from Ceará experiences the opposite feeling. Vinícius Negreiros, 22 years old, discovered his vocation mid-epidemic. An advertising and publicity student, he distanced himself from his course and found a new passion: being a hairdresser. He got a job in the area despite the turbulent period when Covid-19 was spreading in the country.
“I am extremely happy and I don’t regret my choices. If I weren’t working, I would be at home just studying and at less risk of contracting Covid-19, but I wouldn’t be going through this learning and experience in the job market.”
In addition to the impact of the pandemic, labor issues and unemployment have also influenced the drop in the happiness index. The average per capita labor income of Brazilian citizens, including both formal and informal work, fell 11.3% in the pandemic compared to the first quarter 2020, and reached R$995 (US$200). This was the lowest rate on record and fell below R$1,000 for the first time.
More than 80% of the income drop is due to the population’s job loss. According to Neri, this is an atypical crisis, because, in general, informal work increases in moments of instability. But this trend has slowed down due to the need for social isolation that the pandemic imposed.
Among the poorest 50%, the drop in income was almost twice as high – 20.9%. And wage inequality increased. The Gini index, which measures the concentration of wealth, went from 0.642 in the first quarter 2020 to 0.674 in the same period in 2021, the peak of the historical series.
The closer the index is to 1, the greater the inequality. “It’s a double loss, average income falls as it never did in the historical series, and labor income inequality rises as it never did during the pandemic,” says Neri.
In addition, social welfare, a concept that considers population prosperity and equality, fell 19.4% because of the reduction in average income and the increase in inequality.
The FGV Social study shows that Brazil is usually well positioned in the world happiness ranking. Even in the face of adverse scenarios, the population was generally optimistic about the future. “We had more happiness than money in our pockets,” says Neri. However, during the pandemic, whether in the job market or in happiness, the country reached its lowest levels on record.
As in Moch’s case, the pandemic scenario in the country and the loss of jobs aggravated specific emotions, such as nervousness and anxiety. This was a national trend, as feelings such as stress, worry, sadness and anger increased more among Brazilians than the average among the other 40 countries surveyed.
For example, the concept of worry (measured by a question asking about the person’s feelings the day before the survey) rose from 56% in 2019 to 62% in 2020 among Brazilians aged 15 and older.
As vaccination progresses in Brazil, the happiness marker is expected to rise again, according to Neri. If immunization had been faster, it would have spared the maximum unhappiness of many families who are suffering from the after-effects of this period. “In the short term, the pandemic will leave a number of scars and permanent marks, and on people’s happiness as well.”
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