Not surprisingly, its economy is the eighth largest in the world. Unfortunately, the numbers alone do not give an adequate sense of the country, much of which is uninhabited jungle or rain forest. Nor do the numbers convey some qualitative distinctions about its population. Education in Brazil, as indeed elsewhere in Latin America, is inadequate in both content and availability. Almost half the labor force has not completed primary school or has no formal schooling at all, and only about 40 percent in the appropriate age group are enrolled in secondary schools.
Brazil is very heterogenous racially and culturally.
According to the 1991 census, nearly 70 million people are of African background. There are 250,000 million Indians, mainly in the Amazon rain forest. And there are large communities of people of Japanese, Lebanese, Italian, German, and Polish descent. This factor, combined with an income distribution that is highly uneven and among the worst in the world, constitutes a growing threat to social peace. Although for many years Brazilians successfully exported the myth of a successful multiracial society, there is a growing movement of Black consciousness.