Brazil’s rapid fertility decline since the 1960s is the main factor behind the country's slowing population growth rate, aging population, and fast-paced demographic transition.  As of 2023, Brazil’s total fertility rate – the average number of children born per woman – was 1.75, below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to prevent a population decrease.   The 2022 national census showed that population growth had slowed more than expected.  Factors behind the decrease include fewer births as couples marry later and more women work, an increase in the mortality rate as the population ages, the Zika epidemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as economic troubles and the emigration of young people. The current window of opportunity to benefit from a demographic bonus – when the working-age population exceeds the number of children and the elderly combined – is expected to close around 2035, ten years earlier than expected. 

Well-funded public pensions have nearly wiped out poverty among the elderly, and Bolsa Familia and other social programs have lifted tens of millions out of poverty. More than half of Brazil’s population is considered middle class, but poverty and income inequality levels remain high; the Northeast, North, and Center-West, women, and black, mixed race, and indigenous populations are disproportionately affected. Disparities in opportunities foster social exclusion and contribute to Brazil’s high crime rate, particularly violent crime in cities and favelas.

Brazil has traditionally been a net recipient of immigrants, with its southeast being the prime destination. After abolishing slavery in 1888, the last country in the Americas to do so, Brazil sought Europeans (Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Germans) and later Asians (Japanese) to work in agriculture, especially coffee cultivation.  Lebanese and Syrian immigrants arrived at the end of the 19th century and focused on trade and later commerce. Between 2011 and 2020, the largest immigrant groups came from Venezuela, Haiti, Bolivia, Colombia, and the US. Since Brazil’s economic downturn in the 1980s, emigration to the United States, Paraguay, Europe, and Japan has been rising but is negligible relative to Brazil’s total population. The majority of these emigrants are well-educated and middle-class. Fewer Brazilian peasants are emigrating to neighboring countries to take up agricultural work.