Background: Although the existence of racial fluidity is generally accepted in both Brazil and the United States, changes in racial classification over the life course are often not incorporated into standard demographic estimates. Objective: By taking a multistate perspective on the variability of racial classification, we can use demographic methods to ask new questions about the nature of racial fluidity, such as: How many years can someone classified as White, Brown, or Black at birth expect to live in a different racial category? At what ages are changes in racial classification more likely to occur? Methods: We compute multistate life tables using linked data from Brazil’s largest household survey (2017–2019 PNAD-C) to estimate transition probabilities between the White, Brown, and Black race categories, which we combine with age- and race-specific mortality probabilities. Results: Transition probabilities reveal that up to age 65, Brazilians are more likely to be reclassified from either White or Black to Brown than they are to die at each age. Conditional life expectancy estimates show that Brazilians who were classified as Black at birth can expect to live almost 15 years of their lives classified as White, while those classified as White at birth can expect to live, on average, three years classified as Black. Contribution: We provide important new evidence on the extent of racial fluidity in contemporary Brazil and demonstrate the feasibility of accounting for this fluidity in traditional demographic analysis.

中文翻译：

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作为多国家进程的种族分类（作者：Jerônimo Muniz、Bernardo Lanza Queiroz、Aliya Saperstein）

背景：尽管巴西和美国普遍接受种族流动性的存在，但生命历程中种族分类的变化往往没有纳入标准人口统计估计中。目标：通过从多州角度看待种族分类的可变性，我们可以使用人口统计方法来提出有关种族流动性本质的新问题，例如：出生时被分类为白人、棕色人种或黑人的人预计能活多少年？生活在不同的种族类别中？种族分类的变化在什么年龄更有可能发生？方法：我们使用巴西最大的家庭调查（2017-2019 PNAD-C）的关联数据计算多州生命表，以估计白人、棕色人和黑人种族类别之间的过渡概率，并将其与年龄和种族特定的死亡率概率相结合。结果：过渡概率显示，直到 65 岁，巴西人从白人或黑人重新分类为棕色人种的可能性比在每个年龄死亡的可能性更大。有条件预期寿命估计显示，出生时被归类为黑人的巴西人，在其被归类为白人的一生中，预期寿命约为 15 年，而出生时被归类为白人的巴西人，平均预期寿命为黑人寿命为 3 年。贡献：我们提供了关于当代巴西种族流动性程度的重要新证据，并证明了在传统人口分析中解释这种流动性的可行性。