(Illustration by Raffi Marhaba, The Dream Creative)
Silvio Almeida, Brazil’s human rights minister and a well-known intellectual prior to taking office, writes in his book Racismo Estrutural, “Institutions are racist because society is racist.” Almeida defines structural racism as a broadening of the notion of institutional racism, and argues that institutions are only the materialization of a social structure or a means of socialization whose components include racism. He explains that racism is neither individual nor behavioral, but rather an expression of a structural characteristic that underpins societies around the world—especially colonial ones such as Brazil’s.
Understanding the structural nature of racism thus allows us to better assess and combat its institutional expression, which in Brazil manifests in the exclusion of Black people from all power and decision-making spaces, and in turn, curtails their social mobility. Indeed, one of the most pernicious expressions of structural racism in Brazilian society is workplace inequity. This issue lingers like a vestige of the conditions that followed abolition, after which the government failed to provide the kinds of education, labor, and other supports necessary to transition from a life of enslavement to one of agency, independence, and prosperity.
Data released in 2022 by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE, “Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics”) shows that unemployment and informal labor are higher among this group, which is also more exposed to violence and poverty. Per the World Bank’s poverty line threshold, 18.6 percent of the white population in Brazil is poor, while the percentage is almost double for the Black population. And while unemployment plagues 11.3 percent of white workers, the rate exceeds 16 percent for Black and Brown workers. Wages reflect the same disparity.
Despite improved educational opportunities and widespread efforts to broaden diversity and inclusion, workplace inequities persist. To make progress, organizations, particularly businesses, must better understand the actual employability conditions of the Black population in Brazil. The collection and strategic use of internal data on the racial composition of the workforce, particularly concerning leadership positions, can assist organizations in promoting equity.
A new, mathematical inequity measurement model, Protocolo ESG Racial (“ESG Racial Protocol”), aims to do just that. Promoted by Pacto de Promoção da Igualdade Racial (“The Pact for the Promotion of Racial Equity”), an initiative that aims to attract companies and institutional investors to the issue and engage as signatories, the protocol takes a novel approach to an old issue by giving businesses a means to quantify racial inequity among their staff, compare it with local demographics, and develop new policies and processes as needed to achieve greater balance.
The Roots of Racism in Brazil
For the purposes of this article, we define the Black population as comprising Black (darker-skinned Black) and Brown (lighter-skinned Black) individuals descended from enslaved people forcibly displaced from Africa and forced into miscegenation.
Structural inequities in Brazil stem from one of the longest histories of slavery in the world. While it’s difficult to determine exactly when the first enslaved Africans landed on the coast, it was likely just a few decades after the Portuguese invasion. The cane plantations and sugar refining that began to emerge around 1530 and that laid the groundwork for the country’s colonial economy demanded considerable and constant labor. Colonial powers first looked to the Indigenous population, but as it diminished due to violence and imported diseases, soon turned to African enslaved labor, which was already established in Portugal.
Slavery ensued for the next three centuries and was only abolished on May 13, 1888, through a law titled Lei Áurea (the “Golden Law”)—66 years after Brazil became independent. However, the Brazilian State did not implement any reparation policies in favor of the newly freed population, and following abolition, European immigration was encouraged to not only replace the Black labor force but also “whiten” the population through miscegenation. Today, while Black people currently comprise 56 percent of the population, this legacy of racism remains an immense obstacle to their achieving citizenship, employment, and social mobility.
Yet Brazil has seen growing racial awareness in recent years. According to the latest IBGE data, self-declared Brown people currently comprise 45.3 percent of the total population, making it the biggest racial group in the country. And over the past decade, public policy—by way of the Lei de Cotas (the “Quotas Law”), which establishes university quotas for Black and Indigenous students and people who studied in public schools—has made higher education more accessible to racialized and poor people. Changes like these have impacted culture, including increased Black representation in highly popular TV soap operas and marketing campaigns.
Nevertheless, while some businesses and other institutions have begun to respond, organizations where racial equity is front and center are few. The consulting firm Uzoma and non-governmental organizations like the Black-led funds Baobá and Agbara are some examples, however their focus on affirmative and educational action, literacy and affinity groups, and guidance on private social investment, while needed, is insufficient. Addressing the deep-seated, persistent inequities Black Brazilians face requires a comprehensive, multifactorial approach.
A Data-Based Tool
A major hurdle to racial equity in the workforce is scarcity of data. Few organizations conduct demographic surveys or collect racial data internally, and the general lack of racial literacy—the capacity to critically understand and analyze questions related to race—contributes to a poor understanding of shortcomings in diversity and inclusion. There’s still widespread belief that inequity in the workforce derives from chance or is caused by issues of personal merit.
The Protocolo ESG Racial was developed to address those gaps in data—and consequently in actions that private companies take to address them. The protocol provides the Pacto de Promoção da Igualdade Racial’s signatory companies with a methodology for collecting metrics consolidated under Índice ESG de Equidade Racial (IEER, “ESG Racial Equity Index”). The IEER is a mathematical inequity measurement model based on data already collected by businesses to meet government requirements – such as reports on how many people were hired and dismissed, the number of economically active people, and the kind of occupations in a determined region. It allows organizations to gauge racial disparity as it relates to the presence and remuneration of Black professionals internally compared to the percentage of Black people in the economically active population of the region where the business operates.
This measurement tool, coupled with monitoring by the pact, guides businesses in their work to address inequities in their organizations. Overall, the initiative consolidates an antiracist commitment among businesses and gives them a concrete role in building a more equitable, sustainable society.
Measurement in the Service of Real Change
The IEER is structured around three levels and designed to help companies adapt existing initiatives so that they are more effective against racial inequity. Level one involves a diagnosis of the company’s present demographic, giving substantial weight to the representation and inclusion of Black people in the upper strata of the organizational hierarchy. Black individuals in leadership positions are a significant indicator of equity. Based on these results, the business commits to new representation and inclusion targets, and devises short-, medium-, and long-term actions to achieve them.
Levels two and three correspond with the targets a business sets in level one. Level two focuses internally, examining the leadership ascent of Black professionals across the recruitment, promotion, and retention spheres. Based on these results, businesses generally work to shift their organizational culture by refining institutional practices and policies related to diversity and racial equity. Level three focuses on how the company contributes to the general development of a Black workforce in the area where it operates. It looks at the business’s allocation of social investments in racial equity, with an eye to improving the training of Black workers and supporting their entry into the job market.
Level-one analysis serves as a starting point for the subsequent evaluations, on a scale from -1 (a staff with a lower ratio of Black people than the local population) to +1 (more Black than white people). Therefore, the closer a business’s index score is to 0, the more its internal demographics align with the racial profile of the region in which it operates. Businesses can improve their level-one score by implementing level-two and level-three policies. Throughout these stages, the pact monitors and guides the actions businesses take to improve their IEER, and after an 18-month cycle from their adoption of the protocol, reevaluates them. The first signatories to join completed the cycle in September 2023, and the pact currently comprises 67 large-scale businesses, 12 of which have already finished the reevaluation stage.
The Protocol in Action
Grupo Fleury, a health care company specializing in medical diagnostics, illustrates how a signatory with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies already in place can direct them more effectively toward racial equity. The company initiated its DEI work in 2011 to increase the inclusion of people with disabilities and later broadened the scope. On joining the pact in 2022, it began implementing new measures targeted at racial equity and adapting previous actions to the new goals. The company has introduced relevant affinity groups and staff training, as well as more practical actions, such as the purchase of medical caps that accommodate different volumes of hair, revised hiring policies to improve access to job opportunities, and a career acceleration program for Black women.
One example of an organization that evolved is a firm that originally scored -0.72 in level one, indicating a considerably imbalanced white-to-Black ratio across the hierarchical structure. A year and a half later, after adopting new internal policies and practices (level two) and making private social investments in the training and qualification of local Black workers (level three), the business showed a 22 percent improvement, climbing to a score of -0.56. Another signatory joined the initiative with that score: -0.56. The actions the company took in levels two and three drove up this number by 66 percent to reach a remarkable -0.19 at the end of the evaluation cycle—a near-ideal racial equilibrium level.
Reporting from businesses yet to be reevaluated meanwhile attest to improvements in racial equity due to measures such as reviews of hiring policies and investments in education and awareness programs, and show a remarkable increase in the number of positions set aside for Black job candidates at different levels across the hierarchy.
The Road Ahead
Measuring racial equity in a continent-sized country like Brazil poses a number of challenges. One is producing standards and guidelines that make sense and are replicable across all states. The protocol affords this possibility because it considers the particularities of every location where a business applies it. Another is achieving widespread awareness of it, beyond major businesses in South-Southeast Brazil. Although many participating organizations have branches across the country, signatory take-up in the North, Northeast, and Midwest regions is not as strong.
We are aware that Black people are not alone in enduring marginalization and precariousness in Brazil, nor are the issues they face monolithic. The generally disproportionate burden of household chores on women, for instance, is even heavier for Black women, who are the head of the family in 56.5 percent of Brazilian homes. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples have endured genocide attempts since the colonization of Brazil, and have been alienated from the context of Brazilian society for centuries. Currently, according to the 2022 Census, people who self-identify as Indigenous make up 0.8 percent of the general population. Prior to the new Constitution in 1988, which ensured that Indigenous peoples maintained a right to their own languages and traditions, it was generally expected that their descendants would assimilate into the dominant white culture.
The pact is developing additional indices to help mitigate the negative impacts of colonization on these groups as well. We believe robust and actionable data are needed and will bear fruit. By tapping into already available data, we can see the reality of racial inequity in Brazil and begin to take steps to counteract it. However, no tool, present or future, will thrive without tandem will and effort. Only a collaborative approach that unites the public and private sectors and civil society will bring about true equity.
SSIR works with publishing partners in six countries to produce local language editions of SSIR that help foster social innovation, learning, and knowledge exchange worldwide. Each local language edition has its own unique character and approach to informing and inspiring innovators in the regions they cover.
Read the Portuguese language version of this article here.
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Read more stories by Guibson Trindade, Débora Montibeler & Paula Jancso Fabiani.