Seniors share a maximum of 1% of their income with children – 08/25/2023 – Laura Machado

It is the constitutional duty of families, society and the State to guarantee the right of minors with priority, whether children, adolescents or young people. Faced with this responsibility, it is necessary to think about the use of public resources that guarantees this prioritization.

It is natural to imagine that guaranteeing the rights of the elderly costs more than that of the youth. Health expenditures, for example, differ significantly. The question remains: without harming their rightful priority, for each real allocated to youth care, how much should we allocate to care for the older population?

Comparison with international practice can help us to have references, as I have already written in another text. Brazil differs greatly from the world average in the ratio between the public benefit allocated to the elderly, over 60 years old, and to the youngest, from 0 to 19 years old. Data from ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) for 2014 indicate that we are the only country that allocates more than six times the budget from younger people to older ones. The rest of the world allocates twice as much.

Certainly, this far greater allocation of public benefits to the elderly contributes to the portrayal of poverty today. According to the 2022 PNAD (National Household Sample Survey), among people aged 0 to 15, 35% are among the poorest. Among people over 60, only 5% are among the poorest. Poverty is concentrated in Brazilian youth.

One of the many arguments that try to justify this marked inequality in the distribution of public resources is that, within families, the elderly help to take care of our children. Of course, the transfer of resources is not the only form of intergenerational care. Living together, participating in activities and transferring culture are important forms of care.

But let’s do an analysis only from the point of view of resources, without including other forms of care. Only 7% of children aged 0 to 9 live at home with at least one elderly person, according to last year’s PNAD. Considering these homes, the elderly share a maximum of 11% of their income with family members and 1% with children.

So, just looking at this mechanism, if the Brazilian government transfers R$500 to the elderly and R$100 to the children, for example, the elderly will transfer 5 of their 500 to the children and they will have 105 in total.

Article 227 of our Constitution makes clear the State’s duty to provide priority care for children, adolescents and young people. Why does the Brazilian State not distribute twice as much resources to the elderly as the rest of the world does? Why distribute six times more? Are there any components that sharply differentiate us from other countries, including those in Latin America?

Regardless of the answer, the six-to-one decision has consequences. Not counting the transfer from the elderly, 35.4% of children aged 0 to 9 are below the poverty line. Including this transfer, 33.7% are below the poverty line. The difference is very small compared to the seriousness of having poverty concentrated in our children.

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