Disillusioned and “betrayed”, Brazil sees its children join an unprecedented exodus

Never before have so many Brazilians lived outside their country. Overwhelmed by insecurity and economic difficulties, each year tens of thousands of young people and retirees, rich and poor, pack their bags to rebuild their lives far from Latin America’s largest economy.

Brazil, historically a land of welcome for Asians, Africans and Europeans, now sees its children leave: 4.2 million of them were living abroad in 2020, a figure that began to grow without interruption since 2016, when the Foreign Ministry reported three million of emigrants, and deepened since the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro to power in 2019.

“I don’t know if I would say I was unhappy…but I didn’t see a future. I was already thinking about having a family and I thought: ‘I can’t do that here’. I love my country, my whole family is there, but for now my husband and I are not thinking about going back”, says Gabriela Vefago Nunes.

Like many who are looking for better jobs and quality of life, this 27-year-old nurse left her homeland in September to settle in Quebec, Canada, the ninth destination for Brazilian migrants with 121,950 registered people.

The United States, with almost 1.8 million, heads the list, followed by Portugal (276,200) and Paraguay (240,000), where there was a rural migration in the 1970s, according to a recent report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In his native Blumenau, in the state of Santa Catarina (south), Vefago Nunes needed two jobs to survive; he now he works in a medical center in Montreal.

“We see the possibility of forming a family. We have security, here I see families in the streets without worrying about the violence. In Brazil we always went out with the expectation that something bad was going to happen”, he points out.

“Nothing in return”

The high rates of violence, inflation, unemployment and the pandemic are the ingredients of the largest exodus from Brazil, which exceeds the migratory flight that emerged in the mid-1980s (1.8 million), motivated by hyperinflation, experts agree.

“Now it is mainly an economic issue, job opportunities, the impossibility of growing professionally, earning more money, saving, buying a house,” explains Gabrielle Oliveira, a migration specialist and professor at Harvard University.

“People have lost confidence and feel betrayed by their own country. They think: ‘I gave so much and I don’t get anything in return,’” she says.

The Foreign Ministry report does not specify ages or socioeconomic conditions, but Oliveira assures that the migrants who go to the United States or Europe have very varied profiles, although they are mostly young and men.

In the diaspora of the 1980s, those who left the country were mainly well-off people. Now, some poor Brazilians sell their belongings or take on debt to migrate illegally or legally, explains Oliveira.

Marcos Martins, a 58-year-old mechanical engineer, feels lucky to have a “more successful” professional life than a good part of his compatriots. Even so, in April he hopes to have changed the “stressful” Rio de Janeiro for Lisbon, where he and his wife intend to continue with his endeavors.

“One of the motivations for going abroad was the possibility of having a better result [económico]with the same or less effort”, he explains.

future risk

In Portugal there are tax advantages for Brazilian retirees and businessmen, says the publicist from Rio de Janeiro, Patricia Lemos, who in 2018 set up a company there to help her compatriots move and adapt.

“Here a person of 50, 60 years old manages to work. In Brazil, he can’t even get a job selling popcorn,” he says, noting that many of his compatriots establish themselves more easily in Europe because they have Portuguese or Italian nationality, as a result of colonization or the reception of migrants from Italy.

According to experts, in addition to losing skilled labor from sectors with high demand, such as technology, the exodus could be a future risk due to recent projections that warn of an aging population.

By 2100, those over 65 may represent 40.3% of the 213 million Brazilians (in 2010 they were 7.3%), according to an October report by the Institute of Applied Economic Research, linked to the Ministry of Economy. Those under 15 years of age would go from 24.7% to 9%.

“It is a subject that can complicate a lot, because more and more people retire and there are fewer of productive age”, affirms Oliveira.

In Sao Paulo, 33-year-old nurse Ricardo Vieira de Arruda is studying French with the hope of moving to Canada.

“My thought is to leave and not return. In Brazil there is not as much quality of life as out there. Here, if you have money, you have quality of life; if not, you have practically nothing”.