The Care and Shelter of Children and Adolescents in Brazil: Expressions of Social Issues

The future of Brazilian children who have the protection offered by familial bonds is threatened by social inequities that force them to seek shelter and grow up in shelters. According to the Institute of Applied Economic Research, an estimated 20,000 children and adolescents are served by institutions. The majority of these children are afro-descendent males between the ages of seven and fifteen years old. Of those researched, 87.6% have families (58.2% receive visits from their families, 22.7% are rarely visited by their families and 5.8 are legally prohibited from contacting or being by their families). The percentage of children and adolescents “without families” or with “missing families” is 11.3%. There is no information available for 2% of the children and adolescents residing in shelters. The principle factors that necessitate the placement of Brazilian children in institutions that provide care and shelter include poverty (including children forced to work, sell drugs or beg, for example); domestic violence; chemical dependence of parents or guardians; homelessness; death or parents or guardian; imprisonment of their parents; and sexual abuse committed by their parents or guardians. The issue of abandoned children and adolescents and their care and shelter in the Brazilian context expresses a perverse violation of Child and Adolescent Rights.

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Birth Weight: The Role of Perceived Danger and Substance Abuse

In this analysis we connect structural neighborhood conditions to birth outcomes through their intermediate effects on mothers’ perceptions of neighborhood danger and their tendency to abuse substances during pregnancy. We hypothesize that neighborhood poverty and racial/ethnic concentration combine to produce environments that mothers perceive as unsafe, thereby increasing the likelihood of negative coping behaviors (substance abuse). We expect these behaviors, in turn, to produce lower birth weights. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a survey of a cohort mothers and children born between 1998 and 2000 in large cities in the United States, we find little evidence to suggest that neighborhood circumstances have strong, direct effects on birth weight. Living in a neighborhood with more foreigners had a positive effect on birth weight. To the extent that neighborhood conditions influence birth weight, the effect mainly occurs through an association with perceived neighborhood danger and subsequent negative coping behaviors. Poverty and racial/ethnic concentration increase a mother’s sense that her neighborhood is unsafe. The perception of an unsafe neighborhood, in turn, associates with a greater likelihood of smoking cigarettes and using illegal drugs, and these behaviors have strong and significant effects in reducing birth weight. However, demographic characteristics, rather than perceived danger or substance abuse, mediate the influence of neighborhood characteristics on birth weight.