Study awarded the Capes Prize shows that Brazil has reduced monetary poverty, but still has the challenge of doing the same with multidimensional poverty
Between 2000 and 2010, monetary poverty suffered a significant reduction in all regions of Brazil, thanks to economic growth and improved income distribution. It turns out that multidimensional poverty, that which takes into account factors other than income, such as housing conditions and education, continues to be a challenge to be faced by the country, especially in rural areas. The finding is part of the doctoral thesis by economist Adriana Stankiewicz Serra, at the Institute of Economics (IE) at Unicamp, under the guidance of professor Walter Belik. The research was awarded the 2018 Capes Prize in the area of Economics.
In her work, Adriana compared the incidence of multidimensional poverty between rural and urban areas, taking into account the striking spatial inequalities that exist in Brazilian territory. To do this, she used data from the demographic census, thus reaching the reality of living conditions at the municipal level. The economist developed a proposal for a spatial econometric model, in order to consider the relationship between variations in poverty and economic growth. According to the author of the thesis, the results of the analyzes demonstrated that asymmetries in terms of deprivation between rural and urban areas remain high, despite the improvement in the population's conditions in all indicators evaluated.
Adriana explains that, during the period considered, there were substantial advances in access to electricity and durable consumer goods in rural areas, but these still have serious deficiencies in sanitation and basic education, the latter mainly related to young people and adults. “Access to primary education was practically universal. The same, however, does not happen in the 15 to 17 year old age group. We still have a significant portion of the illiterate population, which is unacceptable, in addition to many young people and adults who have only completed a few years of studies”, points out the researcher, adding that the research does not address the issue of quality of education.
Also according to the study, the data obtained indicates that only a portion of the population is simultaneously poor from both a monetary and non-monetary perspective. “Hence the importance of countries, including Brazil, developing their own indices to measure the problem of multidimensional poverty. The fact that a person has an income that places them outside conventional poverty standards does not mean that they have actually left this condition, as they may still be suffering significant deprivations in other areas”, observes Adriana.
Particularly, the economist argues that Brazil's main priority in the effort to combat poverty should be investment in education. “Education is fundamental not only to expand people’s opportunities for insertion into the job market, but also to provide autonomy, in the broadest sense of the term, to their lives”, considers Adriana. She clarifies that the research considered two dimensions of poverty: standard of living and education. The health variable was not worked on directly because the demographic census does not provide information on the topic.
The first dimension took into account the following indicators: water pipes, exclusive-use bathroom, waste disposal, electricity, durable consumer goods and resident/dormitory density. The second covered two aspects - school attendance and literacy and age-grade adequacy and level of education. According to the author of the thesis, the spatial distribution of multidimensional poverty in Brazilian territory proved to be similar to monetary poverty, widely recorded in the literature. “The highest incidence occurs in municipalities in the North and Northeast,” she notes.
The research also found that the contribution of increased per capita household income to poverty reduction was lower in rural micro-regions compared to intermediate and urban micro-regions. “It was also possible to verify that GDP growth in the agricultural and service sectors was statistically significant in reducing poverty in rural and intermediate micro-regions, although the effect was extremely low for the analysis by municipalities”, he points out.
According to Adriana, the literature highlights the importance of relations between rural and urban areas for development and poverty reduction. Proximity to urban centers favors access for residents of rural regions to goods and services and expands their job opportunities. The research found that the services sector contributed most to reducing poverty in rural micro-regions.
In other words, the data reveals the importance of non-agricultural income for reducing rural poverty. “In other words, it is not possible to solve rural poverty only through an agricultural sectoral policy. Agriculture is important, without a doubt, but it is essential to create alternatives in other activities, given that they have the potential to contribute to the reduction of poverty”, considers the author of the thesis, who received a scholarship granted by the Coordination for Personnel Improvement Higher Education (Capes) to carry out a sandwich doctorate at the University of Leeds, in England, under the supervision of Gaston Yalonetzky.
