School fees, health insurance, bills for two mobile phones, regular monthly payments for a new Fiat Palio bought last year and an occasional evening sipping a caipirinha cocktail or two at the local dance hall: the demands on the R$3,000 ($1,900) that Edilma Silva and her partner, Neno, bring home each month keep growing.

Even so, Ms Silva, a 25-year-old self-employed manicurist, is delighted with her lot, which she says has changed beyond all recognition since she left her home in the rural north-east 12 years ago. “There are many more options, many more opportunities,” says Ms Silva, who owns a modest two-bedroom house in the eastern São Paulo suburb of Jardim Angela. “Now I am much more independent and have so much more self-esteem.”