Pobreza no Brasil: uma perspectiva multidimensional

The paper analyses poverty in Brazil from 1992 to 2004, combining the usual measure based on income with other indicators of well-being and social development, thus better capturing different poverty situations. Using data from an annual household survey (PNAD), the poor are classified in three categories: type I, when the basic deficiency is low income; type II, when the deficiency is lack of at least two of three basic facilities (piped water, bathroom, electric light); and extremely poor, when there is low income and lack of all three basic facilities. These three categories are compared with the non-poor. Type I poverty, which affects one third of Brazilian population, showed cyclical variations, with no clear tendency to decrease. The other types of poverty depend less on economic fluctuations, showing a decreasing trend, as they are more related to long run effects of regional development and infrastructural investments. Using Son?s poverty growth curve, it is shown that from 1993 to 2004 pro-poor growth took place in Brazil, both in rural and urban areas. Growth of the mean income for any group of the population classified as relatively poor was greater than growth of the mean income of total population, showing that the inequality of the Brazilian income distribution decreased from 1993 to 2004.