‘Roasted chicken index’ measures wage inequality in Rio – 07/03/2023 – Market

A simple roasted chicken –or bakery chicken– can illustrate inequality in the purchasing power of families in a city like Rio de Janeiro. This is what the Frangão Carioca index shows.

Produced by the City of Rio, the indicator calculates the average price of the meal in 190 establishments in 161 districts of the municipality, crossing statistics with the average income in each of the locations.

From there, it is estimated how much income each resident commits to consume a roasted chicken at these addresses. There are marked differences between the neighborhoods, according to the second edition of the survey, released at the end of June.

A resident of Jacarezinho, in the north zone, pledges 13.39% of his income to buy a roasted chicken. It is the highest percentage found.

The other end of the list is completed by the neighborhood of Joá, in the west zone, where only 0.57% of income is used. This is the lowest percentage of the Frangão Carioca index.

The indicator was prepared by the City of Rio in a partnership between the Municipal Department of Finance and Planning and the Fundação João Goulart Institute. Publication is annual.

“We manage to bring some reflections with the Frangão index. We manage to see the inequality in the commitment of expenses”, says Rafaela Bastos, president of the Instituto Fundação João Goulart.

According to the survey, roast chicken costs an average of R$ 54.29 in Jacarezinho. The average income, in turn, was R$ 405.49 in the community. The commitment of 13.39% comes from this ratio.

In Joá, the average price of chicken was even lower, R$ 35.76, but residents’ earnings were much higher (R$ 6,239.50). Therefore, the commitment was less than 1%.

The fact that Joá had a lower price than Jacarezinho, according to Bastos, can be explained by a hypothesis associated with the consumption pattern in each location. “The chicken may not be such an interesting delicacy for the resident of Joá”, he says.

The study also makes other types of comparison between neighborhoods. For example, if the resident of Joá pledged 13.39% of his income to buy a roast chicken, as in Jacarezinho, he would pay R$835.46 for the meal.

On the other hand, if the resident of Jacarezinho committed 0.57% of his income, as in Joá, he would spend only R$ 2.31 on the dish.

According to Rio City Hall, the survey used the web scraping methodology, which consists of collecting data directly from a platform – in this case, iFood.

The average income statistics are based on the 2010 Demographic Census, by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

The decision took place because the new edition of the Census, referring to 2022, has not yet released information on income in Brazilian neighborhoods.

The inspiration for Frangão Carioca comes from the Big Mac index, which serves as an indicator of purchasing power based on the prices of hamburgers from the McDonald’s fast-food chain in different countries.

The adaptation to roast chicken, in the case of Rio, is associated with the fact that the food is a highlight on the tables of the local population, especially on weekends, according to Bastos. “It’s part of the carioca’s imagination,” he says.

According to the survey, right behind Jacarezinho (13.39%), Vargem Pequena (12.08%), Rocinha (11.71%), Costa Barros (10.95%), Barros Filho (10.25%) and Complexo do Alemão (9.72%) have the highest percentages of income commitment.

On the side of lower pressures on the budget, in addition to Joá (0.57%), other high-income neighborhoods also stand out, such as Lagoa (0.73%), Barra da Tijuca (0.75%), Ipanema (0. .79%), Jardim Botânico (0.83%) and Gávea (0.89%).

On average for all neighborhoods, Frangão Carioca pointed out that the dish costs R$ 45.23. In Bento Ribeiro, in the north zone, the product costs R$ 77.99, the highest value found by the research.

The lowest price, R$25, was recorded in Ricardo de Albuquerque, in the north zone, and in Santa Teresa, in the central zone.