Between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of senior citizens aged 60 years and over in the Brazilian population changed from 9.8% to 14.3%. At the same time, the employment level of senior citizens dropped from 30.2% to 26.3%. The profile of the group of senior citizens who worked changed: the proportion of employed seniors receiving retirement pension decreased from 62.7% to 53.8% and the share of persons aged between 60 and 64 years among the employed seniors increased from 47.6% to 52.3%.

Among the employed seniors, 67.7% began to work with up to 14 years of age. Persons aged 60 years and over inserted in the labor market had a low average number of years of schooling (5.7 years) and 65.5% of them had the primary school as the highest education level. 

Between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of youngsters between 15 and 17 years who only studied increased from 59.3% to 70.9%, whereas the proportion of those studying and working in the reference week decreased from 22.3% to 14.1%.

Nevertheless, the schooling rate for this group advanced slowly between 2005 and 2015, increasing only 3.4 percentage points (from 81.6% to 85.0%). The age-grade distortion rate – proportion of students regularly registered aged two years or more above the age expected for the grade they attended, in relation to the total number of students – reduced from 36.9% to 26.4%, though school lag still affected 40.7% of the students aged between 15 and 17 years with low performance, five times more than those with high performance.

About one in four (22.5%) youngsters aged between 15 and 29 years neither attended school nor worked in the reference week in 2015. Called 'neither-nor', their proportion increased 2.8 percentage points against 2005 (19.7%). The proportion of persons aged between 25 and 34 years under the condition of children in the households changed from 21.7% in 2005 to 25.3% in 2015. 

This information and more is in the Summary of Social Indicators study - SIS: an analysis of life conditions of the Brazilian population 2016. Information from the IBGE and other sources, like the Ministries of Education, Health and Labor, allows SIS to systematize a set of information on the social reality in Brazil, analyzing subjects like demographic aspects, households and arrangements, specific population groups (children and teenagers, youngsters and seniors), education, labor, living standards, income distribution and housing units.

On the one hand, the study pointed out that more than half of the Brazilian population in 2015 comprised of black and brown persons (54.0%); on the other hand, they represented 75.5% of the persons within those 10% with lower earnings (against 23.4% of white persons). At the same time, they were only 17.8% of the persons within those 1% of the population with the highest earnings (against 79.7% of white persons). In 2005, black and brown persons represented 74.1% of those 10% with the lowest earnings and 11.4% of those 1% with the highest earnings.

The complete publication, including all the results of the Summary of Social Indicators 2016, can be accessed here.

Demographic aspects: fertility in adolescence falls 22.1% in 10 years

Between 2005 and 2015, fertility of women aged between 15 and 19 years dropped from 76.3 to 59.4 children per thousand women, a reduction of 22.1%. In 2015, Acre recorded a higher fertility rate for this age group (104.3 children per thousand women), while this indicator was lower in the Federal District (40.0 children per thousand women).

The overall fertility rate for Brazil changed from 2.09 children per woman in 2005 to 1.72 in 2015, representing a drop of 17.7%. The age group with the highest fertility was that of women aged between 20 and 24 years (90.0 children per thousand women in 2015).

One in each 5 persons aged 15 years and over lives in consensual union

In 2015, 56.3% of the persons aged 15 years and over cohabit, being 36.5% married in civil and/or religious marriages and 19.8% lived in consensual union. About one in each five (18.3%) persons in this age group did not cohabit, though they had already cohabited, and one in each four (25.4%) never cohabited.

In 2015, the proportion of men living in marital union increased with age, maintaining high levels (between 70.0% and 80.0%) above 30 year of age; for women, this indicator increased up to the groups between 30 and 39 and between 40 and 49 years of age, hitting about 70.0% of the persons within these age groups and starting to decrease in the groups above 50 years of age.

Regardless of population aging, dependency ratio still drops

While the proportions of senior citizens aged 60 years and over and adults aged between 30 and 59 years increased from 2005 to 2015 – respectively 4.5 and 4.8 percentage points –, the proportions of children aged between 0 and 14 years (5.5 p.p.) and youngsters aged between 15 and 29 years (3.8 p.p.) dropped, pointing out a clear trend of demographic aging. 

Even so, the overall dependency ratio – ratio between economically-dependent persons (youngsters up to 15 years and seniors aged 60 years and over) and those potentially active (between 15 and 59 years) – dropped in the last decade, changing from 57.2 economically-dependent persons per 100 potentially-active persons in 2005 to 54.7 in 2015.

The analysis of the age groups pointed out that the dependency ratio of youngsters significantly decreased, changing from 41.7 to 32.5, whereas the dependency ratio of senior citizens increased from 15.5 to 22.2 in the same period.

Specific population groups: 65.5% of seniors in labor market have primary school only

Between 2005 and 2015, the profile of the group of senior citizens who worked changed: the proportion of employed seniors receiving retirement pension decreased from 62.7% to 53.8% and the share of persons aged between 60 and 64 years among the employed seniors increased from 47.6% to 52.3%. However, the employment level of senior citizens dropped from 30.2% to 26.3% in the same period, pointing out how vulnerable senior citizens are in the labor market.

The low average number of years of schooling of employed persons aged 60 years and over (5.7) contributed to such vulnerability. The average number of years of schooling among employed persons aged between 15 and 29 years was 10.1 and, among those aged between 30 and 59 years, 8.9.

As a result, 65.5% of the senior citizens inserted in the labor market did not complete primary school (or similar). As their highest education level, they were inserted in less qualified job positions. Employed senior citizens were inserted earlier in the labor market, where 24.7% of them began to work with up to 9 years of age and 43.0% between 10 and 14 years.

These indicators evolved since 2005 – as a result of the aging of the more educated population –, when the average number of years of schooling of employed seniors was 3.7, 81,8% of them did not complete primary education (or similar), 32.9% entered the labor market with up to 9 years and 45.8% between 10 and 14 years of age.

Percentage of children living in households with less than 1/4 minimum wages per capita increases

From 2014 to 2015, the percentage of children and teenagers living in households with per capita monthly earnings up to 1/4 minimum wages increased, changing from 15.2% to 17.6% of the children aged between 0 a 4 years and from 15.9% to 18.4% of the children and teenagers aged between 5 and 14 years. Nonetheless, it represented a reduction in relation to 2005, when these percentages were of 22.4% and 20.7%, respectively.

The percentage of children aged between 0 and 4 years living in households with no access to a sanitation system – water supply from a general network, sanitary exhaustion through a collecting or drainage network and direct or indirect garbage collection – dropped from 15.3% in 2005 to 8.1% in 2015. The study pointed out regional disparities: while such percentage was of 2.6% in the Southeast, 18.0% of the children aged up to 4 years lived in housing units lacking sanitation in 2015.

More than half of employed youngsters work from 40 to 44 weekly hours

Between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of youngsters between 15 and 17 years who only studied increased from 59.3% to 70.9%, whereas the proportion of those studying and working in the reference week decreased from 22.3% to 14.1%.

In the same period, the work conditions for the group aged between 15 and 29 years improved, dropping in the percentage of those without earnings (from 11.6% to 6.1%) and increasing in the proportion of those who earned between 1 and 2 minimum wages (from 32.6% to 43.8%).                                                                                        In addition, 13.7% of the youngsters stopped working more than 44 weekly hours and began to work between 40 and 44 hours, adding up to 50.9% of the employed youngsters in this bracket.

In 2015, 27.4% of youngsters between 18 and 24 years neither work nor study

About one in four (22.5%) youngsters aged between 15 and 29 years neither attended school nor worked in the reference week in 2015. Called 'neither-nor', their proportion increased 2.8 percentage points against 2005 (19.7%). The group aged between 18 and 24 years registered the highest percentage of 'neither-nor' in 2015: 27.4%.

Even considering the increase in the percentage of men who neither studied nor worked (from 11.1% in 2005 to 15.4% in 2015), the percentage of women in this condition was quite higher (29.8%). This could be related to the barriers to the entrance of women in the labor market and to the dedication to household tasks, since the percentage of young women who neither studied nor worked and who were not looking for a job in the reference week (inactive) was of 21.1%, whereas that of those who neither studied nor worked, but looked for a job (unemployed) was of 8.7%, and that 91.6% of all 'neither-nor' women dedicated 26.3 weekly hours to household tasks, on average.

The percentage of inactive young men was about the same as that of unemployed non-students (7.6% and 7.8%, respectively) and 47.4% of all 'neither-nor' men dedicated 10.9 weekly hours to household tasks, on average.

Households and arrangements: 63.7% of persons living alone above 50 years of age

Of the total 71.2 million arrangements living in private housing units, 14.6% were of the sole type, 0.3% were multi-personal without family ties and households corresponded to 85.1%. The arrangement corresponds to a person or group of persons, with or without family ties, living in a private housing unit.

Between 2005 and 2015, the proportion of sole arrangements, related to the population aging, increased from 10.4% to 14.6%, since the proportion of sole arrangements comprising persons aged 50 years and over changed from 57.3% to 63.7%.

In the multi-personal arrangements with family ties, the most common household core comprised a couple with children, though decreasing from 50.1% to 42.3% of the total number of arrangements from 2005 to 2015. The couple-without-children arrangement increased from 15.2% to 20.0% and the arrangement comprising woman without spouse with children changed from 18.2% to 16.3%.

The proportion of women as the reference person in the household advanced from 30.6% to 40.5% in the 2005-2015 period. In the arrangements comprising a couple with children, this proportion changed from 6.8% to 22.5% and, in the arrangements comprising a couple without children, it changed from 8.4% to 22.0%.

Youngsters between 25 and 34 years living with parents are more educated

The proportion of persons aged between 25 and 34 years under the condition of children in the household arrangement changed from 21.7% in 2005 to 25.3% in 2015. In 2015, the employment-population ratio of the persons in this age bracket living with their parents (71.7%) was similar to that of those who were not living (75.1%), suggesting that staying with parents was not directly associated with the lack of work.

Nevertheless, the persons living with their parents were more educated, since 35.1% of them had incomplete higher education or higher. The average number of years of schooling was 10.7 years and 13.2% of them were still studying. The indicators were lower for those not living with their parents: 20,7% had incomplete higher education or higher. The average number of years of schooling was 9.8 years and only 7.2% of them were still studying.

Education: schooling rate of youngsters between 15 and 17 years grows only 3.4 percentage points in a decade

The schooling rate of children aged between 0 and 3 years grew from 13.0% in 2005 to 25.6% in 2015. In the age bracket between 4 and 5 years, this indicator varied from 62.8% to 84.3% in the same period. For persons aged between 6 and 14 years, the schooling rate drew near universalization in the 1990s, reaching 98.6% in 2015. On the other hand, the access to school of youngsters aged between 15 and 17 years slowly advanced from 2005 to 2015 and increased only 3.4 percentage points, changing from 81.6% in 2005 to 85.0% in 2015.

School lag between 15 and 17 years falls from 2005 to 2015, though still affecting 40.7% of students with lower earnings

Between 2005 and 2015, the age-grade distortion rate – proportion of students regularly registered aged two years or more above the age expected for the grade they attended, in relation to the total number of students – for the students aged from 15 to 17 years reduced from 36.9% to 26.4%.

The proportion of students in this age bracket with age-grade distortion attending the public network was 3.6 times greater than that in the private network. In addition, those 20% with the lowest per capita household monthly earnings (first fifth) had a age-grade distortion rate of 40.7%, five times greater than that of those pertaining to the 20% with the highest earnings (fifth fifth).

The effect of the school lag can also be noticed among the youngsters between 15 and 17 years not attending school. In 2015, 15.0% (1.6 million) of teenagers in this age bracket did not study in Brazil. Among the youngsters who had dropped out school before completing secondary education (1.3 million youngsters), 61.4% of them dropped out before completing primary education.

Regardless of increasing, percentage of black and brown students in higher education remains well below that of white ones

The net school attendance – proportion of persons attending school grade matching their age bracket, excluding those who completed this grade – in higher education increased from 11.4% in 2005 to 18.4% in 2015, about half of the 33% requested by Goal 12 of the National Plan of Education up to 2024.

The percentage of black and brown persons aged from 18 to 24 years attending higher education was of 12.8% in 2015. This rate significantly increased in relation to 2005 (7.3 p.p.), though it still remained below the percentage hit by young white students in 2005 (17.8%) and 2015 (26.5%).

One of the factors responsible for worsening such inequality was the school lag, which affected black and brown students compared with white students. In 2015, 53.2% of black and brown students in this age bracket attended grades earlier than higher education, like primary and secondary education, whereas only 29.1% of white students were in this same situation.                                   

Labor: percentage of domestic workers contributing to social security still low

The number of persons employed with a formal contract increased 39.9% in Brazil between 2005 (46.2%) and 2015 (58.2%). A factor that contributed to the maintenance of the formalization rates between 2014 and 2015 was the increase of the percentage of self-employed workers contributing to the Social Security, from 27.7% in 2014 to 28.9% in 2015.

Domestic workers was the category with the lowest formalization rate. In 2015, the percentage of domestic workers without a formal contract who individually contributed to social security was 13.4%; in the case of employed persons without a formal contract, the percentage was 24.3% and the rate among self-employed workers, 28.9%.

The rate of contribution to social security was quite different among monthly domestic workers – those who worked 40-hour shifts or more per week – and diarists – those working up to 39-hour shifts. While the proportion of those who contributed to social security among the monthly workers increased from 50.3% in 2012 – when the Constitutional Amendment Bill of the domestic workers was approved – to 59.1% in 2015, the proportion among the diarists varied from 20.3% to 22.0%. 

Workers with formal contract earn, on average, twice the earnings of workers without formal contract

The real average earnings – adjusted for inflation – of the employed population with or without a formal contract followed an upward path between 2005 and 2014. However, it dropped 4.6% in 2015 over the previous year. The average earnings of jobs with a formal contract (R$ 2,195) was about twice that of jobs without a formal contract (R$ 1,174).

In 2015, the hourly earnings of persons with 12 schooling years or more was 4.3 times the hourly earnings of the population with up to four schooling years (R$35.11 and R$8.20, respectively). Nevertheless, this relation was even higher in 2005: 5.3 times.

Domestic work hours of women twice of men

The gender pattern of the Brazilian society remained virtually unchanged in the last decade concerning the labor market and the domestic tasks. In 2015, as in 2005, men spent 10 weekly hours with domestic tasks, half the time women spent with these same tasks.

In 2015, men worked 40.8 hours and women, 34.9 hours. Adding up the time dedicated to activities at home and away from home, women worked, on average, 55.1 weekly hours, which represented five hours more than men.

In 2015, 6.2% of the employed men aged 25 years and over held management positions; among women, this proportion was of 4.7%. Wage inequality was also high, since women in these positions earned, on average, 68.0% of the average earnings of men.

Living standards and income distribution: 75.0% with lowest earnings were black or brown persons

Although decreasing over the last years, income inequality in Brazil reflected the segmentation by color or race. In 2015, black and brown persons represented 54.0% of the overall population, though they were 75.5% of the persons with the 10% lowest earnings (against 23.4% of white persons). At the same time, they represented only 17.8% of the persons within those 1% of the population with the highest earnings (against 79.7% of white persons).

In 2015, the Palma index pointed out that those 10% with the highest earnings concentrated three times more than the total earnings of those 40% with the lowest earnings, which remained stable in relation to 2014 (3.1). In relation to 2005 (4.1), inequality significantly reduced.

Life conditions and health risks affect population unevenly, with strong racial and regional inequalities

The National Survey of Health 2013 pointed out that 37.8% of the adult black and brown population assessed their health as regular, bad or very bad, against 29.7% of the white population. Black and brown persons (38.7%) were more exposed to live in housing units in precarious condition – without simultaneous access to water supply from the general network, sewage system through the general network or septic tanks, and waste collection – than white persons (22.3%). At the same time, 53.1% of black and brown persons aged 18 years and over lived in housing units without washing machines, against 27.2% of the white population.

In 2013, 42.7% of the persons aged 18 years and over living in housing units without access to basic services ranked their health as regular, bad or very bad, against 29.9% of those who lived in housing units accessing these services.

In 2013, the states of the North and Northeast Regions registered the highest proportion of persons self-assessing their health as regular, bad or very bad and who did not pay a visit to a doctor in the last 12 months, varying from 15.1% of the adult population in Maranhão and 14.2% in Pará, among the highest exposures, against 2.7% and 2.8%, respectively, in Santa Catarina and São Paulo.

Housing units: proportion of housing units overpaying rentals increases

Among the rented housing units (17.9% of the total), the proportion of those overpaying rentals – situation in which the monthly rent equals or surpasses 30.0% of the monthly household income – was 24.3% in 2005 and changed to 32.0% in 2015. Considering the the total number of housing units, regardless of the occupation status, the proportion of those overpaying rental varied from 3.9% in 2005 to 5.7% in 2015.

Concerning the type of household arrangement, overpaying was more usual in the sole ones (10.0%) and in those whose comprising a woman with children (8.7%), and less usual in the households arrangements comprising a couple with children (4.1%) and a couple without children (4.0%).

The reduction of the average number of dwellers per housing unit from 3.5 in 2005 to 3.0 in 2015 coupled with the decreasing proportion of housing units with less than four rooms (from 10.8% to 7.6%) has been reducing the extreme densification – housing units with more than three dwellers per room used as bedroom. Under this criterion, 6.0% of the permanent private housing units were extremely dense in 2005, reducing to 3.0% in 2015.

The number of housing units with bathroom or toilet exclusively used by the dwellers changed from 93.6% in 2005 to 97.7% in 2015.