The study, based on a sample survey of over 800 young
people between the ages of 10 and 24 and their parents, shows the relationship
between various aspects of young people´s lives. Education is a key to employment and within
this one low-income community there are important variations in educational
attainment.

  • -Young people
    whose parents can read or have themselves completed ensino fundamental or grade
    school are more likely than other young people to be one year or less behind
    grade level or to have not failed a grade.
  • -Failing a year
    at school was related to being male and to having a higher number of other
    young people living in the household.
  • -Young people
    overwhelmingly blamed themselves, not the quality of the schools in their
    community, for failing at school. Young
    people overwhelmingly blamed their incapacity to learn for the chief reason for
    failing at school.
  • -40% of young
    people who were working had a work card.
    Not surpisingly, older youth were more likely to have a work card than
    younger youth. But also young people who
    had completed ensino fundamental were more likely to have a work card than
    those who had not.
  • -Younger youth
    were more likely to work in their own communities, older youth outside their
    communities. This finding suggests that
    the level of economic activity in low-income communities is an important
    condition for helping young people establish their work lives.
  • -Most young
    people found their first jobs through family and friendship networks. While this finding indicates the richness of
    such connections in low-income communities, it suggests that youth from
    low-income communities could well be disadvantaged in finding work in the
    formal economy outside their neighborhoods.
  • -There is
    growing concern in Brazil
    about the number of young people who are neither involved in work or
    schooling. A much higher percentage of
    young women, (35%) than young men (17%) in the Caju sample fall into this
    category, a difference explainable by the young women who had children of their
    own or other domestic responsibilities.

This research, which will soon appear in its complete
form on the CIESPI web site, complements a major CIESPI project, Connecting Youth
in Low-Income Neigborhoods in Rio de Janeiro
to Work. This CIESPI project, funded by
FINEP and coordinated by Alexandre Soares, examines strategies for improving
such connections with a special concentration on five low-income communities in
Rio and in the context of community economic
development.

For more information contact Malcolm Bush:
mbush@woodstockinst.org and Alexandre Soares: Aleprofisional@yahoo.com.br

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