Permanência, transição, vulnerabilidade?: três análises dinâmicas sobre a pobreza no Brasil

Abstract

iiThe profile characterization of low income population is crucial for more effective proposals of public policies against poverty. However, static measures of the populations life conditions do not necessary offer a good indicator for the dynamic phenomenon that characterizes poverty. Consequently, the distinction between groups of the population that are chronic poor, transient dispossessed and/or vulnerable impose the design of different social policies that are more appropriate for each group. Stimulated by the lack of this type of research in Brazil, the objective of this thesis is to analyze the well-being of the Brazilian low income population also in a dynamic perspective.The thesis was structured in three papers and has methodological and investigative features. It proposed alternative measures of well-being adapted to limitations due to the use of longitudinal data. In the first paper, it was implemented a method that estimated the transient-chronic components of poverty with the use of a pseudo-panel. The second one consists of an analysis of the pure effects of period, cohort and life cycle on the transient-chronic components of poverty in a study that uses a longitudinal data. The third paper uses the ex-ante principle of vulnerability evaluation and applies a method of stochastic simulation of the familys consumption with cross-section information.Among the main results, it can be seen that urban poverty in Brazil was essentially chronic from 1995 to 2003. Although, it was identified a temporal tendency of reversion of this scenery with a relative increment of the transient component. In 2003, it was estimated that, in spite of the intrinsic relation between vulnerability and poverty, part of the population that are not currently deprived show a high vulnerability to destitution. This increase in the transient poverty may have an impact on the perception of the risks faced by the family, which can be linked to an augmentation of the use of risk management strategies to cope with this type of poverty, which might diminish the familys long run well-being. This require that social programs of income transference may be accompanied of measures that guaranty a smaller volatility of the familys conception, mitigating the currently flaws of the credit and labor markets.