Society

Brazil’s racial makeup shifted in a unique way

For the first time in the historical series of Brazil's census, multiracial people make up the majority of the population. The shift has more to do with new ways of thinking about identity than with demographic changes

Brazil's racial makeup shifted in a unique way
Photo: Wagner Vilas/Shutterstock

For anyone with some knowledge of the Brazilian population, to suggest the country is predominantly multiracial is uncontroversial, but only now has it been made official, with data from the 2022 census. 

With the latest census data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), multiracial people outnumber any other group in the country for the first time in the current historical series, making up 45 percent of the total population.

However, some Brazilian statistical nuances must be understood to fully comprehend the significance of this finding. Race is self-identified in the Brazilian census, adhering to four categories: black, white, indigenous,