The Synthesis of Social Indicators (SIS) 2013 shows that, in 2012, near 20% of young people aged 15 to 29 did not attend school or work. The proportion of women in this group was big: 70.3%. Among them, the proportion of those with at least one child stood out: 30.0% of  the ones aged 15 to 17, 51.6% in the group aged 18 to 24 and 74.1% of those aged 25 to 29. Among people aged 15 to 17, not studying nor working, 56.7% had not finished primary/middle school. Of those aged 18 to 24, 47.4% had not finished high school.

Aiming at portraying social reality from a deeper perspective through updated indicators, SIS 2013 brings information subdivided into six themes: “Demographic aspects”; “Families and housing units”; “Education”; “Labor”; “Standard of living and income distribution”; and “Health”.

The study reveals that between 2002 and 2012, the proportion of young persons aged 25 to 34 living with their parents grew from 20% to 24% in Brazil. And in 2012, 29.7% of the urban housing units had not had simultaneous access to the basic services of sanitation and electricity (water supply, sewage, waste collection and electric lighting services).

In terms of education, the study showed that, in ten years, the schooling (percentage of people of a certain age group attending daycares or schools) of children aged 0 to 3 almost doubled, growing from 11.7% in 2002 to 21.2% in 2012. In the group aged 4 and 5, the rate rose from 56.7% to 78.2%, even though in the rural area, one of every three children of this age bracket did not attend school. The proportion of youngsters aged 18 and 24 who were at college grew from 9.8% to 15.1% in the same period.

Formal jobs also rose in the last decade. In 2002, 44.6% of the workers were in the formal sector (contributing somehow to the Social Security Program), this percentage grew to 56.9% in 2012. However, a great part of the work force is still in the informal sector in Brazil: 43.1% of the workers in 2012.

In 2012, 6.4% of the family arrangements had a per capita household income of 1/4 minimum wages, and 14.6% had more than 1/4 to 1/2 minimum wages per capita. Between 2002 and 2012, the income from “other sources” for the range up to 1/4 minimum wages per capita gained in terms of relative contribution, from 14.3% to 36.3% of the total income of these family arrangements.

Although the regional differences are maintained, Brazil has reduced child mortality rate (up to five years old) from 53.7 deaths per thousand live births in 1990 to 18.6 in 2010. And the indicator for children up to one year old fell from 47.1 to 16.0. In 2012, 24.7% of the population had health insurance plan, but in São Paulo, the figure reached 43.6%, whereas in Acre it was 5.6%.

The main source of information of the Synthesis of Social Indicators 2013 is the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) 2012. Other surveys carried out by IBGE were also used, as well as external sources. The complete publication and other results are available at www.ibge.gov.br/english/estatistica/populacao/condicaodevida/indicadoresminimos/sinteseindicsociais2013.

Demographic aspects: one out of every five young persons aged 15 to 29 neither studies nor works

In 2012, 9.6 million youngsters aged 15 to 29 (one out of every five) did not attend school nor work in the week of reference; most of them were women (70.3%). Among these women, 58.4% had at least a child, and this proportion grew with aging: 30.0% among those aged 15 to 17, 51.6% in the group aged 18 to 24 and 74.1% of those 25 to 29 years old.

In the group aged 15 to 17, the proportion of young persons not working or studying was 9.4%. This incidence was 23.4% among those aged 18 to 24, and of 21.3% in the group aged 25 to 29. Among those not working or studying, 10.2% were 15 to 17 years old, 54.6% were between 18 and 24 years old and 35.2%, 25 to 29 years old.

In the group aged 15 to 17 not working or attending school, 56.7% had not finished the primary/middle school, although at this age they should be already at high school. In the group aged 18 to 24, which should have at least completed high school, only 47.4% of those not working or studying had finished this level of schooling, whereas 52.6% had up to unfinished high school. Out of the persons aged 25 to 29 not working or studying, 51.5% had not finished high-school, 39.2% had finished high-school and just 9.3% had graduated from college or were at college.

Retirement pension or allowance represent 66.2% of the income of persons aged 60 or more

The most typical characteristics of the elderly aged 60 or over in 2012 are: most of them are women (55.7%) and white (54.5%); 84.3% of them are set in urban areas; they are heads of households (64.2%), especially in the case of men (80.5%); their average schooling is of 4.6 years, 28.1% had less than an year of schooling and 7.2% had graduated from college or were post-graduates; 76.3% received some amount of money from social security, out of them, 76.2% of the men and 59.4% of the women were retired; 47.8% had income from all sources above one minimum wages, but around 43.5% lived in housing units with per capita monthly income equal or below one minimum wages.

The main source of the elderly aged 60 or over was retirement pension or allowance (66.2%). For he group of those aged 65 or over, the participation of this kind of income is more important (74.7%). For the group of persons aged 60 or over, 23.7% did not receive retirement pension, whereas 7.8% accumulated retirement pension and allowance. The insertion in the labor market of persons aged 60 or over, in 2012, was marked by the employment rate of 27.1%. Out of them, 15.3% of the persons were employed and retired, and the average weekly time dedicated to work was of 34.7 hours. For the persons aged 65 or over, the employment rate was of 19.4%; for men it was 29.6% and for women, 11.6%.

Families and housing units: proportion of persons aged 25 to 34 living with their parents reach 24%

The longer time of family life shared by parents and children has become a social phenomenon of growing importance in the last few years. The term "kanguru generation" was coined to designate youngsters aged 25 to 34 still living with their parents. In the 2002/2012 period, the proportion of young persons of this age group living with their parents rose from nearly 20% to 24% in Brazil. Almost 60% of the youngsters in this condition were men and 40%, women. Of the total family arrangements of related persons, around 10% had young persons aged 25 to 34 categorized as children. For the families with household income up to 1/2 minimum wages, this proportion was of 6.6%. The figure was bigger for families with higher incomes, achieving 15.3% in the range of 2 to 5 minimum wages per capita.

Proportion of women as household head grows, even among couples with children

The proportion of women as the reference person of the household rose from 28% in 2002 to 38% in 2012. In the case of families formed by a couple without children, the proportion of women rose from 6.1% to 18.9%, in the couples with children, from 4.6, it increased to 19.4%. Out of 100 women head or spouses, nearly 52 claimed to be employed, in a ratio similar to the employed women aged 16 or over (51.3%). Therefore, the status of women in the family does not affect their insertion in the labor market.

Sanitary sewage is the least accessed service by urban housing units

In 2012, 29.7% of the urban housing units did not have simultaneous access to the basic services of sanitation and electricity (water supply, sanitary sewage, waste collection and electric power). In this group, 93.5% declared absence of sanitary sewage. For each 100 housing units with simultaneous access to the four services investigated, there were 42 others without any access to at least one of them. In the North, in Rondônia, the ratio is 10.4 (for each housing unit with the service, there were 10.4 without the service) and in Amapá the figure was 18.8. Piauí, in the Northeast, reached 20.5.

Education: 1/3 of children aged 4 and 5 in rural areas did not attend school

The schooling rate of children aged 4 and 5 rose from 56.7% in 2002 to 78.2% in 2012. However, in the rural area, one child out of every three children in this age group did not attend school. Access inequalities related to family incomes for the children in this age bracket are evident: for those belonging to the 20% richer, school access edged 92.5%, whereas for the children whose families belong to the 20% poorer, the rate was 71.2%.

In the age group of 0 to 3, attendance to daycares increased from 11.7% in 2002 to 21.2% in 2012. However, access inequality remained high. In 2012, the proportion of children aged between 2 and 3 attending daycares almost trebled for the richer quintile (63.0%) in relation to the poorer quintile (21.9%) in the distribution of the per capita monthly household income. In 2002, this ratio was even bigger: 4.1 times (48.6% and 12.0%, respectively).

Proportion of young persons at college rises from 9.8% to 15.1% in ten years

The rate of school attendance of teenagers aged 15 to 17 in the level adequate to their age rose from 40.0% in 2002 to 54.0% in 2012. In relation to the population aged 18 to 24, the proportion of those attending university was 9.8% in 2002 and increased to 15.1% in 2012. Of the total of students in this age bracket (6.6 million), 52% were in higher education.

The inequality by race or color remained in 2012: 66.6% of the total of white students aged 18 to 24 were at college, against 37.4% of the black or brown ones. This proportion is lower than the pattern reached by white youngsters ten years ago (43.4%). In 2002, only 12.2% of black and brown students aged 18 to 24 attended higher education.

The average schooling of the population aged 25 or over increased from 2002 to 2012, moving from 6.1 to 7.6 years of complete schooling. 40.1% of persons in this age bracket reached 11 years of schooling or over. The increment of schooling was stronger for the 20% "poorer", whose increase was of 58%, whereas the 20% "richer" presented a rise of 10% in the average of schooling between 2002 and 2012.

Labor: 56.9% of the employed are in the formal market

Between 2002 and 2012, the proportion of workers employed in the formal market rose from 44.6% to 56.9%. Such an increase means more rights to several benefits. This group of workers includes the ones with a formal contract, the military and civil servants and the own-account workers who contribute to the Social Security program.

The indicator of formalization presented significant changes in the South (from 49.6% in 2002 to 65.6% in 2012) and Central-West Regions (from 44.3% to 60.8%). The lowest change occurred in the North, from 33.9% to 38.7%. The advance of formalization was also evidenced in the Northeast, whose rate moved from 26.7% to 38.6%. In the Southeast, the rate increased from 55.1% to 66.9%. Maranhão recorded 74.5% of employed persons in informal jobs, whereas Santa Catarina and the Federal District posted just 26.9% of workers in that condition.

Informality still comprises a significant percentage of the Brazilian work force (43.1% in 2012). Young persons aged 16 to 24 and the elderly aged 60 or over represent the highest percentages of informal workers, whose rates in 2012 are 46.9% and 70.8%, respectively. However, the reduction of the informal jobs among the youngsters, from 62.1% in 2002 to 46.9% in 2012, was proportionally higher than the fall seen in Brazil (from 55.4% to 43.1%).

Real income of the employed population aged 16 or over rises to R$ 1,469

From 2002 to 2012, the growth of the real income of the employed population aged 16 or over was of 27.1% (from R$ 1,151 to R$ 1,469); for the population in formal jobs this growth was of 13.6% (from R$ 1,559 to R$ 1,778), while for those in informal jobs the increase was of 31.2% (from R$ 751 to R$ 989). For women in informal jobs, this real gain reached 38.5%.

In 2002, the average income of the employed women aged 16 or over was equivalent to 70% of men's income. In 2012, this relation changed to 73%. Inequality is higher in the informal market, where women's income corresponds to 66% of men's.

Workers with a formal contract, who in 2012 accounted for 39.8% of the total of the workers, presented a real growth in their income since 2002 of 15.0% (from R$ 1,250 to R$ 1,434). In relation to the greatest changes in the period, the categories with the highest gains were domestic workers with (48.3%, from R$ 547 to R$ 811) and without a formal contract (46.6%, from R$ 339 to R$ 497) and own-account workers (40.0%, from R$ 941 to R$ 1,318).

Employed population still presents significant differences by sex

There is still a lot of difference in the distribution of the employed population by sex, given that almost 1/4 of the employed women in 2012 are domestic workers, subsistence workers, unpaid construction workers for their own use. In the case of men in these categories, the percentage is of 5.6%.

In 2012, the access of women aged 25 or over to executive or management positions was lower in comparison to men in this age group: 5.0% and 6.4%, respectively. This situation is not very different from what happened in 2002, when the proportion of women and men in these positions in relation to the total of employed persons by sex were 4.9% and 7.4%, respectively.

In 2012, men worked 42.1 hours per week and women, 36.1. As to household chores, the hours of men and women were 10 and 20.8, respectively. In comparison with 2002, it is important to highlight that men's hours with household chores practically remained the same, whereas women had a reduction of a little more than 2 hours a week.

Standard of living and income distribution: government cash transfers increase household incomes

In 2012, PNAD estimated that 6.4% of the families had up to 1/4 minimum wages per capita of household income. 14.6% of the families were in the range of 1/4 to half minimum wages per capita. In PNAD, the total income of families is formed by their incomes from work, retirement pensions and allowances and "other incomes", which refer to rentals, interest and financial investments, bonuses, cash transfer programs (Bolsa Família, BPC, PETI, etc) among others. One can understand that for these families of lower income ranges, "other sources" refer essentially to income from government cash transfers, which may explain the growth of their relative contribution to the total household income. Between 2002 and 2012, income from other sources for the group up to 1/4 minimum wages increased from 14.3% to 36.3%, whereas for the families with per capita income of more than 1/4 to 1/2 minimum wages, the contribution of "other sources" moved from 6.5% to 12.9%.

Even though the relative growth of the income from other sources have reduced relatively the weight of the income from work in the total income of these families, there was not reduction in the employment rate of the family members at working age, which remained near 80% in that same period. Therefore, other sources helped increase the average household incomes without impacting the contribution to the labor market. 

Income inequalities due to color or race remain

In terms of the personal income distribution, based on the individual incomes of persons aged 15 or over surveyed by PNAD (all sources), in 2012, the first decile of the distribution (10% with the lowest incomes) got 1.1% of the total income, whereas the last decile (10% with the highest incomes) accounted for 41.9%. The 10% with highest incomes had an average income 12.6 times above the income of the 40% with the lowest (in 2002, the ratio was 16.8).

Economic inequalities, here measured by the per capita monthly household income, also come out when the color or race of the Brazilian population is considered. In the first decile (10% “poorer”), are 14.1% of the black and brown population and 5.3% of the white. As income increases for each decile, the contribution of white rises and that of black and brown diminishes. In the last decile (10% “richer”), the situation is the opposite (with 15.9% of whites and 4.8% of browns). Between 2002 and 2012, there was a slight improvement in the distribution of the per capita household income for those with income from work, even though the inequality situation was quite the same: 81.6% of whites in the 1% "richer", against only 16.2% of blacks and browns.

60.5% of persons had at least one restriction of access to their rights; in 2002, the proportion was 72.0%

SIS 2013 uses, besides financial poverty, other four indicators to measure living conditions from the point of view of citizen rights:

• Restrict access to education: children and teenagers aged 6 to 14 not attending school; persons aged 15 or over who are illiterate; and persons 16 or over that had not finished primary/middle school. This proportion fell from 38.5% in 2002 to 30.6% in 2012.

• Restrict access to quality spaces in the housing units: residents of housing units whose walls were not made of bricks or planed wood; roof whose predominant material was not tiles, concrete slabs or planed wood; and whose dwelling density was above 2.5 persons. This proportion fell from 24.8% in 2002 to 17.0% in 2012.

• Restrict access to basic sanitary and electricity services: residents of housing units whose water supply was not served by the public network; sanitary sewage was not carried out through sewage collection system or septic tank; without direct or indirect waste collection; or even those without electric power. This proportion fell from 39.9% in 2002 to 31.6% in 2012.

• Restrict access to social protection: residents of housing units without at least one person aged 10 or over, in some of the following conditions: tax payer of the Social Security Program from any job; retired; receiving any allowances from the Social Security Program or participant of a cash transfer program. This proportion fell from 23.2% in 2002 to 11.3% in 2012.

Between 2002 and 2012, the proportion of persons presenting at least one of the four access restrictions investigated declined from 72.0% to 60.5%.

Health: Northeast posts the greatest reductions in mortality rate among children

With the purpose (Millennium Goals) of achieving the level of 17.9 deaths per thousand live births, Brazil has been presenting a downward trend in the child mortality rate (up to five years old). The goal was almost reached in 2010, when there were 18.6 deaths per thousand live births - quite below the result in the 1990's (53.7 per thousand). The reduction was even stronger in the Northeast Region (from 87.3 to 22.1 per thousand live births). But the regional differences remain: in 2010, the rate was of 13.4 in the Southeast, 15.5 in the South, 25.0 in the North. Infant mortality rate (children younger than one year of age) has also decreased, moving from 47.1 deaths per thousand live births to 16.0 per thousand. The greatest fall was also in the Northeast, from 75.8 to 19.1 per thousand.

Between 1990 and 2010, there was a 51% fall in the maternity mortality ratio, which estimates the death risk of women during pregnancy, delivery or abortion and puerperium (a period of 42 days after delivery), attributable to causes related to those phases. In 2010, there were 68.2 deaths per 100 thousand live births, almost the double of the figure proposed by the Millennium Goals of 35 deaths per 100 thousand live births in 2015, but quite below the 1990's indicator (143.2 per thousand live births).

Black and brown young persons are the most affected by violent deaths

In relation to the data on the external causes of death, the greatest rates were found among men aged 20 to 39 (184.6 deaths by 100 thousand inhabitants). The black or brown population presents a rate of violent deaths higher than that of the white, with a highlight to the young population. In the group aged 20 to 24, the death rate per thousand inhabitants is of 30.0 for the white, against 82.0 for the black or brown - 2.7 times bigger than that of the white in 2010.

43.6% of the population in São Paulo had health insurance plan; in Acre, 5.6%

According to the National Regulatory Agency for Private Health Insurance and Plans (ANS), 24.7% of the Brazilian population had health insurance plans in 2012. This figure was concentrated regionally, with 64% of the plans in the Southeast. Among married persons, the extremes were: São Paulo, where 43.6% of the population had a health insurance plan; and Acre, with 5.6%.

Data from Medical Demography in Brazil, carried out by the Federal Council of Medicine, reveal that there were 1.95 doctors for each thousand inhabitants in 2011, but there were also huge regional discrepancies, from 0.98 in the North Region to 2.61 in the Southeast. In the capitals, the ratio was 4.2 per thousand. According to the Survey of Medical-Sanitary Assistance (2009), the private sector takes care of a smaller proportion of the population, but accumulates a greater quantity of job posts, mainly in the Southeast (58.5%), South (64.4%) and Central-West Regions (54.9%). Job posts in public institutions prevail in the North (62.2%) and Northeast Regions (54.1%). In the beginning of the decade, Family Health teams gave assistance to a population estimated at 17.4%. In 2012, the assistance estimated by the Ministry of Health was of 54.8% of the population.