• Highlights

• In 2023, against the previous year, access to education resumed growth for all age groups. School attendance of children aged 0 to 3 went from 36.0% to 38.7%; and that of children aged 4 and 5 went from 91.5% to 92.9%.
• In 2023, for children aged 0 to 3 who were not attending school or daycare, 60.7% did not attend school due to "choice of parents or caregivers." For those aged 4 to 5, this proportion was 47.4%. For both groups, there was an increase from 2022, when figures were 57.1% and 39.8%, respectively.
• As for access to school at the proper stage, Brazil has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels in the case of children aged 6 to 14 enrolled in primary school. In 2019, this index was 97.1%, with drops in 2022 (95.2%) and 2023 (94.6%).
• In primary education, drop of the adjusted net school attendance (TAFEL) was observed among children aged 6 to 10 who were expected to attend initial years, with a change from 95.6% of adequacy-age-stage to 90.8%, between 2019 and 5.0%, causing school dropout before the end of high school of children aged 15 to 17 to drop from 6.8% to 5.7%.
• In higher education, for the population aged 18 to 24, TAFEL increased, and changed from 24.7% in 2019 to 25.9% in 2023.
• In 2023, about 9.1 million youngsters aged 15 and 29 had dropped out of school without finishing basic education (child, primary and high school). From this total, 515 thousand were aged 15 to 17; 4.5 million, aged 18 to 24; and 4.1 million, aged 25 to 29.
• The necessity to work was the main reason reported by men aged 15 to 29 to drop out of school. As for women in the same age group, pregnancy (23.1%) and household chores (9.5%), together, surpassed necessity to work (25.5%) as the main reason.
• In 2023, the percentage of persons aged 25 to 64 who had not completed basic compulsory education (40.1%) in Brazil, that is, high school, was more than twice this proportion for the same age group in the average of OECD countries in 2022 (19.8%).
• Of the total deaths in 2023 (1,463,546), the majority, 17.3%, was of black men aged up to 69. Up to nine years of age, black or brown women were number two in the ranking (0.7%) and, for persons 10 years of age and over (10 to 59, 4.1%), they were the third, and died earlier than white ones.

After the negative impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, access to education for the younger age groups resumed growth in 2023. School attendance of children aged 0 to 3 went from 36.0% to 38.7% between 2022 and 2023; and that of children aged 4 to 5, from 91.5% to 92.9%. however, between 2022 and 2023, there was an increase of the number of children aged up to 5 years of age and who were not attending school for choice of the parents or caregivers, with a change from 57.1% to 60.7% in the age group of 0 to 3, and from 39.8% to 47.4% in the age group of 4 to 5. 

Data come from the Summary of Social Indicators (SIS) 2024, released today by the IBGE. Read more news on poverty and new geographic divisions. 

The study shows a different situation from 2019 to 2022, when the only age group that kept the increase of school attendance was persons 15 to 17, which changed from 89.0% to 92.2%. 

“The results of education indicate that the drawbacks brought by the COVID-19 pandemic regarding guaranteed school access were reversed in 2023, more than three years after the first cases of the disease in Brazil,” says Bruno Perez, analyst of SIS. 

In 2023, school attendance levels by children aged 6 to 14 were close to universalization (99.4%) and, in the groups aged 15 to 17 (91.9%) and 18 to 24 (30.5%), attendance was stable from 2022. 

Therefore, Brazil has advanced towards the meeting of targets set by the National Education Plan (PNE), in the period 2022 - 2023, which has as its objective the universalization of education in preschool for children aged 4 to 5 and the coverage of 50% of the children up to 3 years of age until 2024. 

Choice of caregivers was the main reason for children aged up to 5 stay away out of school in 2023 

Between 2022 and 2023, in the group aged 0 to 3 and 4 to 5 years of age, there were changes in the main reasons presented for not attending a teaching institution. There was an increase in the percentage of children who were not attending school due to a choice of parents or caregivers. This was the most reported reason, and represented 60.7%  of children aged 0 to 3, and 47.4% for children aged 4 to 5 in 2023. In the previous year, the indexes for these age groups were 57.1% and 39.8%, respectively. 

Therefore, the other reasons faced drops in percentages, including those that did not go to school due to failure in the offer of basic education, such as: lack of vacancies; lack of schools; a school that does not accept a child because of their age, excessive distance or insecurity in school; and insufficient financial conditions of parents or caregivers to keep the child in school, such as lack of money to pay the fees, transportation, material, etc.

“The main difference between the two age groups, with reference to the main reasons for not attending school, is in the high percentage related to the choice of parents of not sending children aged 0 to 3 to child education, in comparison with the same reason for children aged 4 to 5. That causes the percentage attributed to lack of vacancies in school for children aged 4 to 5 (20.2%), age of compulsory attendance to school in basic education, to be higher than the percentage for children aged 0 to 3 (8.7%).” In Absolute figures, 8.7% of the children aged 0 to 3 who did not attend school totaled 598.2 thousand children, whereas 20.2% of the children aged 4 and 5 who were not attending school represented almost  89.3 thousand children in 2023. 

Education at the right age is a post-pandemic challenge 

The indicators of adequacy age-grade between the years 2019 and 2023 showed that Brazil did not get back to levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic for the group of children aged 6 to 14 in elementary school, whose adjusted school attendance rate (TAFEL) fell from 97.1% in 2019, to 95.2% in 2022, and 94.6% in 2023. The cumulative drop of 2.5 p.p. in this indicator between 2019 and 2023 stopped the country from meeting one of the PNE targets, which sets a TAFEL of 95% for primary school. 

In high school, TAFEL increased from 71.3% to 75.0%, causing school dropout before the end of this step, for youngsters aged 15 to 17,to decrease from 6.8% to 5.7%, between 2019 and 2023. However, this indicator remained far from the 85% up to 2024, set by another PNE target, and without a significant change between 2022 and 2023. 

For the population aged 18 to 24, in higher education, TAFEL went from 24.7% in 2019 to 25.9% in 2023. However, it remained equally below the 33% expected for until 2024 as one of the PNE targets and without a significant change from 2022 to 2023.

In 2023, 9.1 million youngsters aged 15 to 29 had already dropped out of school without completing basic education 

Approximately 9.1 million youngsters aged 15 to 29 had already dropped out of school without completing basic education in 2023. From this total, 515 thousand were aged 15 toa 17, 4.5 million were 18 to 24, and 4.1 million were 25 to 29. 

Among youngsters aged 15 to 29 who did not complete basic education, the majority (63.7%) did not reach incomplete high school, with 39.4% not completing primary school, while 24.3% finished this step. Most youngsters aged 15 to 17 who left school without completing compulsory basic education had not complete primary education (53.6%) and 24.9% completed this level, only, that is, 78.5% did not have at least incomplete high school education. Against youngsters aged 18 to 24, a group that could have finished high school, 59.6% left school with a level of schooling below incomplete high school. 

In the case of women, the main reasons for school dropout in 2023 were pregnancy (23.1%) and the need to do household chores or take care of a child, teenager, elderly person or person with disability (9.5%) stand out, reaching 32.6% and surpassing reasons such as necessity to work (25.5%) and lack of interest (20.9%).

Among men, necessity to work had the highest proportion (53.5%), and the percentage attributed to household chores and care was residual for men (0.8%). 

Performance of Brazil in education was below the average of OECD countries 

The proportion, in Brazil, of 40.1% of the persons aged 25 to 64 who had not completed compulsory basic education in 2023, that is, high school, was more than twice as observed in the average of OECD member countries in 2022 (19.8%), presented in the report Education at a glance 2023: OECD indicators. This result places the percentage of persons without a high school, degree in Brazil above  that of other Latin American countries  Colombia (37.9%), Argentina (33.5%) and Chile (28.0%).

In the younger age group, with persons aged 25 to 34 who had not finished high school, the country kept, in 2023, a percentage twice as high as the average of OECD member countries in 2022, that is, 26.8% for Brazil, versus 13.8% for the average of OECD.

As for the percentage of persons aged 25 to 64 who finished higher education, the average of OECD countries, in 2022, was 40.4%. The Brazilian average, in 2023, was approximately half of the OECD average OCDE (21.3%). Although the youngest age group, of 25 to 34, had reached a higher percentage of persons with a higher education in Brazil in relation to the total population aged 25 and over (23.7%) in 2023, the result remained half of that released for the average of OECD countries in the same age group (47.2%) in 2022. The Brazilian rate was below that of Latin American countries, such as Mexico (27.1%), Colombia (34.1%) and Chile (40.5%).

Mortality rate got back to pre-pandemic level

In 2019, there were 1.3 million deaths in Brazil. In the years of COVID-19 pandemic, it reached 1.6 million in 2020, 1.8 million in 2021 and, in 2022 and 2023, 1.5 million each year. During the global sanitary emergency, the annual increase of deaths in 2020 was 15.3%, and 17.7% in 2021. In 2022 it fell by 15.7% and, in 2023, by 5.2%. An analysis of a period before the pandemic (2010 to 2019), the average annual increase was 1.0%. The expansion between 2019 and 2023 was 8.4%, and the average annual change of deaths in this period was 2.0%.

From 2019 to 2023, the mortality rate in the country expressed the impact of the pandemic on the health of the population, with a significant increase of this statistics in 2020 and 2021. Resulting from the number of deaths divided by the population, this rate increased from 6.5 to 6.9 for every one thousand residents between 2019 and 2023, that is, an increase of 6.5%, being also worth mentioning the peaks during the pandemic (7.4 in 2020 and 8.7 in 2021).

Young black or brown men were the majority of deaths in 2023

In 2023, younger black or brown men were the majority of deaths in Brazil (17.3% of the total) in all age groups up to 69. Up to 9 years of age, black or brown women are the second in this ranking (0.7%). From the age of ten onwards, in second place, there were white man aged up to 69 (11.3% of the total deaths). As a result, from the age of 10 onwards, black or brown women were in the third position (from 10 to 59, 4.1%), and died, obviously, earlier than white ones. The latter started to have more deaths than the former after 60 years of age, with a prevalence at 80.

In the group aged over 60, the percentages of deaths by sex and color or race were, in 2023: white woman (20.5%), white man (18.9%), black or brown man (15.6%) and black or brown woman (13.8%).

“In the comparison of age pyramids disaggregated by sex and color or race shows that, in 2023, there is a resumption of the pattern of 2019, after the uncommon movements caused by mortality due to COVID-19. Also, elderly age in Brazil reaffirms itself as White, and older than 80, female,” says Clician Oliveira, SIS analyst.

The comparison between 2019 and 2023, with increase of 8.4% of total deaths in Brazil, the group other diseases caused by viruses corresponded to the second biggest absolute composition of the rate (0.8 p.p.), only second to neoplasia (tumors) (1.3 p.p.). Together, these two groups reached, in 2023, approximately 2.0 p.p. in the change of deaths.

Despite the significant drop from 2022 (65.8 thousand deaths) to 2023 (10.0 thousand deaths), COVID-19 remained the main cause of deaths last year, corresponding to 97.1% of the deaths in the group other diseases caused by viruses.

More about the survey

The Summary of Social Indicators: ana analysis of the Brazilian population’s living conditions 2024, systematizes information about local reality and the living conditions of the Brazilian population.

The study presents indicators for 2012 to 2024 about economic structure and labor market; standard of living and income distribution (including poverty lines), housing conditions; education and health conditions. Geographies include Major Regions, Federation Units and, for some indicators, municipalities of capitals. 

In this edition, new analyses are presented, such as indicators on living conditions by geographic strata; housing conditions by status of monetary poverty; among others.