Marcelo Medeiros

Abortion in Brazil: a household survey using the ballot box technique

This study presents the first results of the National Abortion Survey (PNA, Pesquisa Nacional de Aborto), a household random sample survey fielded in 2010 covering urban women in Brazil aged 18 to 39 years. The PNA combined two techniques, interviewer-administered questionnaires and self-administered ballot box questionnaires. The results of PNA show that at the end of their reproductive health one in five women has performed an abortion, with abortions being more frequent in the main reproductive ages, that is, from 18 to 29 years old. No relevant differentiation was observed in the practice of abortion among religious groups, but abortion was found to be more common among people with lower education. The use of medical drugs to induce abortion occurred in half of the abortions, and post-abortion hospitalization was observed among approximately half of the women who aborted. Such results lead to conclude that abortion is a priority in the Brazilian public health agenda.

Itinerários e métodos do aborto ilegal em cinco capitais brasileiras

This paper presents the results of the structured interview phase of the National Abortion Survey (PNA-interviews), describing the itineraries, methods and social and demographic profile of women who had at least one illegal abortion. Structured interviews were conducted during the years 2010 and 2011 in five state capitals (Belem, Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador) with 122 women aged between 18 and 39 who had abortions. It is a non-probabilistic sample controlled by six parameters in accordance with level of education and age to reflect the social and demographic structure found in the PNA ballot-box questionnaire phase. The majority of women interviewed had had only one abortion, but 1 in every 4 had two abortions and 1 in every 17 had a third one. The majority of abortions are among women under 19 years of age who already had children and a higher incidence is found among black women. The most common test for pregnancy is beta-HCG blood test, the pharmacy urine test and ultrassound. The prevailing method for induction is a combination of teas and misoprostol (called Cytotec in Brazil), followed by hospital assistance after induction. Women are usually helped by a relative or their partners and several women reported helping other women to have abortions.

Transferência de renda no Brasil

The article describes several characteristics of the two most important targeted cash transfer programs in Brazil, the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC) and the Bolsa Familia Program (PBF), and discusses their institutional aspects, long term sustainability, beneficiaries and levels of targeting. It also addresses the need of feedback conditions, the effects of the transfers on the participation in the labor market and on the contributions for the pensions system. The conclusion is that, on the one hand, the programs are accomplishing the goals they were designed to, under costs which are compatible with the Brazilian budgetary capacity; on the other hand, they apparently have no negative effects on incentives to work and contributions to the pensions system.

O Topo da Distribuição de Renda no Brasil: Primeiras Estimativas com Dados Tributários e Comparação com Pesquisas Domiciliares (2006-2012)

Este articulo presenta la primera estimativa de la concentracion de renta entre los mas ricos en Brasil calculada a partir de las declaraciones del impuesto de renta de personas fisicas entre 2006 y 2012. Las principales medidas de desi-gualdad son las fracciones de la renta total apropiada por el 0,1%, 1% y 5% mas ricos. Los resultados son testados y comparados con las encuestas de hogares brasilenos. El texto concluye que los datos tributarios revelan una concentra-cion en la cumbre de la piramide significativamente superior que las demas fuentes y, en terminos generales, esta permanece estable en el periodo analizado.

A estabilidade da desigualdade de renda no Brasil, 2006 a 2012: estimativa com dados do imposto de renda e pesquisas domiciliares

OBJECT the level and evolution of income inequality among adults in Brazil between 2006 and 2012. OBJECTIVES to calculate the level of inequality, its trend over the years and the share of income growth appropriated by different social groups. METHODOLOGY We combined tax data from the Annual Personal Income Tax Returns (Declaração Anual de Ajuste do Imposto de Renda da Pessoa Física - DIRPF) and the Brazilian National Household Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - PNAD) to construct a complete distribution of total income among adults in Brazil. We applied Pareto interpolations to income tax tabulations to arrive at the distribution within income groups. We tested the results, comparing the PNAD to the Brazilian Consumption and Expenditure Survey (Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares - POF) and to data from the Census Subsample Survey (Census. RESULTS We found evidence that income inequality in Brazil is higher than previously thought and that it remained stable between 2006 and 2012; in making these findings, we thus diverged from most studies on the dynamics of inequality in Brazil.. There was income growth, but the top incomes have appropriated most of this growth.Object: the level and evolution of income inequality among adults in Brazil between 2006 and 2012.Objectives: to calculate the level of inequality, its trend over the years and the share of income growth appropriated by different social groups.Methodology: We combined tax data from the Annual Personal Income Tax Returns (Declaracao Anual de Ajuste do Imposto de Renda da Pessoa Fisica - DIRPF) and the Brazilian National Household Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios - PNAD) to construct a complete distribution of total income among adults in Brazil. We applied Pareto interpolations to income tax tabulations to arrive at the distribution within income groups. We tested the results, comparing the PNAD to the Brazilian Consumption and Expenditure Survey (Pesquisa de Orcamentos Familiares - POF) and to data from the Census Subsample Survey (Census.Results: We found evidence that income inequality in Brazil is higher than previously thought and that it remained stable between 2006 and 2012; in making these findings, we thus diverged from most studies on the dynamics of inequality in Brazil.. There was income growth, but the top incomes have appropriated most of this growth.

Gender Inequalities in Allocating Time to Paid and Unpaid Work: Evidence from Bolivia

This working paper analyzes paid and unpaid work-time inequalities among Bolivian urban adults using time use data from a 2001 household survey. We identified a gender-based division of labor characterized not so much by who does what type of work but by how much work of each type they do. There is a trade-off between paid and unpaid work, but this trade-off is only partial: womens entry into the labor market tends to result in a double shift of paid and unpaid work. We also find very high levels of within-group inequality in the distributions of paid and unpaid work-time for men and women, a sign that, beyond the sexual division of labor, subgroup differentiation is also important. Using decompositions of the inequality in the distribution of total time spent at work, we show that gender plays an important role in determining the proportion of paid to unpaid work done by individuals, but it plays a lesser role in determining the higher total workload of some individuals relative to others.

Brazilian women avoiding pregnancy during Zika epidemic

Brazil now has confirmed 1845 cases of Congenital Zika syndrome in babies (TORCHZ) in a group of 9091 suspected cases.1 It is estimated that 174 003 Brazilians have been infected with Zika, although the Ministry of Health has not published any updated surveillance data since early July 2016.2 To understand if and how the epidemic has impacted reproductive health practices, we conducted a national survey in June 2016 using mixed methods. We used a face-to-face questionnaire to collect …

Diferencial salarial público-privado e desigualdade de renda per capita no Brasil

We estimate the contribution of the wage differential between workers with the same attributes in the public and private sectors to the household per capita income inequality in Brazil. The estimate is based on counterfactual simulations and the contribution to inequality on a factor decomposition of the Gini coefficient. Data comes from the Brazilian National Household Survey PNAD 2009. The differential corresponds approximately to 17% of the wage bill of workers in the public sector, is regressive and highly concentrated. However, because it amounts to a small share of the total income (1%) its contribution to the total inequality is of 3%. The sector composition effects on inequality are times higher than the segmentation (price) effects. These conclusions are robust to changes in the definition of the sectors and to different estimation techniques.

O Benefício de Prestação Continuada no Supremo Tribunal Federal

This paper analyses decisions of the Brazilian Supreme Court regarding the Beneficio de Prestacao Continuada (BPC, Continuous Cash Benefit), a regular income transfer to the elderly and persons with disability not capable of working or living an independent life whose family per capita income is lower than a quarter of the minimum wage. The litigation of social policies before the Brazilian Supreme Court is a growing phenomena and the case of BPC is paradigmatic. The paper examines the budgetary arguments prevailing in recent Supreme Court decisions, and challenges the appropriateness of the income eligibility threshold set by the Lei Organica da Assistencia Social (Social Assistance Act). In addition, the paper evaluates the fiscal impact of raising the threshold to half minimum wage. The main conclusion of the study is that an increase in the threshold would be followed by an increase in the number of beneficiaries but, due to the existing targeting errors, the raise in costs would be lower than the growth of the eligible population.

Pesquisa Nacional de Aborto 2016

We present the results of the Brazilian National Abortion Survey of 2016 (2016 PNA) and compare them to those obtained in the 2010 PNA as per the profile of women and the magnitude of abortion. The PNA is based on a random sample that combines ballot-box questionnaires with face-to-face interviews with women ages 18 to 39 in urban areas of Brazil. The results show that abortion is a common and persistent occurrence among women of all social classes, racial groups, educational levels, and religions: in 2016, almost 1 in every 5 women had undergone at least one abortion by the age of 40. In 2015, approximately 416,000 women had an abortion. There is, however, heterogeneity among the social groups, with abortions being more frequent among women of lower educational levels, women who are Black, Brown and Indigenous, and women living in the North, Northeastern and Mid-western regions of the country. In line with the 2010 PNA, half of all women took medicine to abort and almost half of them were hospitalized to complete the abortion.