Despite the drop in poverty, inequalities remain, points out IBGE

A new study by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), released this Friday (25), reveals a significant drop in poverty considering data from the 2008-2009 and 2017-2018 biennia. However, the results also point to the maintenance of structural inequalities. In comparisons between the urban and rural populations and even in terms of race, it appears that the differences between the groups have changed little.

The IBGE evaluated non-monetary indicators of poverty and quality of life, based on data from two different editions of the Household Budget Survey: the 2008-2009 and the 2017-2018. As it uses three new statistical indices, the study is in the testing phase and under evaluation. It was classified as experimental research.

The study is focused on population groups that record deprivation of quality of life. To this end, six dimensions were evaluated: housing, access to public utility services, health and food, education, access to financial services and standard of living, and transportation and leisure. In each of them, several items are raised. Thus, poverty and vulnerability were investigated considering the structure of the household, the surrounding environmental conditions, access to electricity and sanitary sewage, school attendance, ownership of durable goods, use of financial services, time spent transportation to work, among other items.

In the first stage of the study, a survey was carried out of people with some degree of poverty in Brazil, taking into account the six dimensions evaluated. This population was significantly reduced in the investigated period. In 2008-2009, 44.2% of people living in the country had some degree of poverty. In 2017-2018, this percentage dropped to 22.3%.

The survey also shows significant differences between urban and rural areas. In 2017-2018, 17.3% of people living in cities had some degree of poverty. In the same period, this percentage was 51.1% among the rural population. However, although it represents more than half of the residents, it is a much lower result than the 77.8% recorded in 2008-2009. The drop in urban areas was also pronounced: in 2008-09, 37.3% had some degree of poverty.

In the second stage, the researchers sought data that would allow a broader understanding of these changes. In this way, new forms of evaluation were established. The first was through the Non-Monetary Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI-NM). It focuses on cases involving more severe losses and will identify intensities of poverty for each group studied. Thus, a cut-off point was established: people with more than a third of the reported deprivation of quality of life were considered.

“Different aspects are observed when we are talking about deprivation of quality of life. For example, observe whether a family has an exclusive bathroom. If she doesn’t have it, that counts. It is observed if there is little space in the home, if there is violence in the area where one lives. One person can be deprived in education and health, another person can be very intensely deprived in education, health and housing. For her to be considered multidimensionally poor, she needs to be deprived in different dimensions. And that is what the index will represent”,

explains IBGE researcher Leonardo Santos de Oliveira.

According to him, the methodology was used to find a more accurate measure to compare Brazil in 2008/2009 and 2017/2018. “If I just look at the proportion of people with some degree of poverty, I can’t understand the intensity of that poverty,” he said.

According to the researcher, the loss of quality of life is considered more pronounced in a situation where a person has many deprivations and accumulates one more than in cases where there are few deprivations and there is one more.

From 2008-2009 to 2017-2018, the IPM-NM dropped from 6.7 to 2.3, meaning a 65% reduction. According to the researchers, the results indicate a more intense reduction in poverty than a superficial analysis of data on the population with some degree of poverty might suggest. At the same time, the study points out that the drop was stronger in cities than in the countryside. It was 66% in urban areas and 59.5% in rural areas.

The study reveals the maintenance of inequality. Even having only 15% of the country’s population in 2017-2018, the rural area represented 40.5% of the result of the IPM-NM. In 2008-2009, its share of contribution was 40.2%, a percentage that indicates stability of the framework.

In the breakdown by regions, the North and Northeast had the highest values ​​of MPI-NM in both periods. Still, the improvement was significant. The MPI-NM in the North Region went from 13.8 in 2008-2009 to 5.2 in 2017-2018. The drop in the Northeast region was from 12.4 to 4.3.

An analysis was also carried out based on the subgroup of color or race. The MPI-NM of the portion of the population with white people of reference fell 62.1%. Among the portion of the population with black or brown people as reference, the index went from 9.6 to 3.2. This is a percentage reduction of 66.6%.

“Note that it is not enough to eliminate the difference that exists in the poverty of families in which the reference person is white or in which the reference person is black or brown”,

observe Leonardo.

The study also shows that the MPI-NM of the population with black or brown people remained above the national average. In addition, the contribution of this group to the composition of the national index increased: in 2008-2009 they had a participation of 75.7% and in 2017-2018 it jumped to 79.1%. According to the survey, “these results show that structural inequality has not changed, despite the reduction in the IPM-NM”.

When analyzing the level of education, it can be seen that the subgroup whose family reference persons have no education recorded a 56% decrease in the MPI-NM. Among the population whose reference person had incomplete or completed elementary school, the decrease was 59%.

Vulnerability

The study also provides an assessment based on the non-monetary multidimensional vulnerability index (MVI-NM). It works with a lower cutoff point. People with more than one-sixth of the reported quality of life deprivations are considered. The analysis, therefore, encompasses a broader population contingent than the IPM-NM.

According to the results, between the 2008-2009 and 2017-2018 biennia, the IVM-NM dropped from 14.5 to 7.7. This is a 47% reduction. The researchers again noted differences between falls in urban areas (48.1%) and rural areas (39.4%). In addition, a slightly greater reduction in the vulnerability of the population with white-skinned reference persons (50%) was also observed, when compared to the decrease registered among the population with black or brown-skinned reference persons (47.3%). .

The study also presented results for the multidimensional poverty index with relative component (IPM-CR). In this case, the researchers do not work with the cut-off point, but with identification and aggregation.

“Basically, we ask each person what their loss rating is and how many people have a loss rating above you. This is considered. Then we asked the next person. It is precisely because of this personal comparison that you now have an indicator with a relative poverty component”,

explains Leonardo.

From the perspective of the IPM-CR, there was also an improvement for Brazil between the 2008-2009 and 2017-2018 biennia. The index registers a drop of 20%, going from 15 to 12. On the other hand, it offers a different reading for the comparison between urban and rural areas, which had a similar reduction: 18.5% in the first case and 18.8% in the second.

When the results are analyzed from the point of view of color or race, the data also bring a new framework. In the group with reference people of black or brown color, the index dropped from 18.7 to 14.4, a reduction of approximately 23%. Among the group with reference persons, the drop was 17.6%, from 10.8 to 8.9.

The researchers maintain that the results portray the persistence of inequality among these populations, given that the contributions to the composition of the national index have changed little. The group with reference people of black or brown color had in 2017-2018 a participation of 68.4% in the total IPM-CR. This percentage indicates a slight increase in comparison with 2008-2009, period in which this contribution was 65.4%.

According to the researchers, the IPM-CR, as well as the IPM-NM and the IVM-NM, point to a strong reduction in poverty and vulnerability. At the same time, it signals that the highest values ​​continue to be concentrated in the less favored segments, reiterating the existence of a structural component of inequality. In addition, the researchers note that, when analyzing the three indices, the dimensions “access to financial services and standard of living” and “education” had a greater impact, but without much difference from the others, reinforcing the multidimensional nature of poverty and poverty. vulnerability.

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