Uma nova abordagem para a pobreza no Brasil: uma medida de bem-estar através da privação de tempo

Abstract

The thesis is comprised of three chapters. On the first chapter titled "Poverty: From Income Insufficiency To Time Deprivation", a literary review on poverty is displayed according to the traditional method that defines income insufficiency and poverty based on time allocation. When it comes to income, the thesis aims to dissert on subjects such as the definition of poverty, poverty identification criteria, measuring methods and results. The history of studies on poverty has been one of conflicting views, especially on topics like the relations between time poverty and education or time poverty and income. Nevertheless, a unanimous point in these researches is that women are the most deprived of rest and leisure. On chapter two, titled "Time Poverty In Brazil: Measurement And Analysis Of Its Determinants", well-being is analyzed on an individual level based on the allocation of work hours executed by adults and children and therefore it measures time poverty in Brazil. On this sense, Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) time poverty indicators are adapted for measuring time poverty. Besides, the analysis of its determinants is also performed. Among some of the results, there was the conclusion that women (children or adult) are the time-poorest individuals in both rural and urban areas. Another concerning result showed that time poverty among children is as high as 16,1%, not very far from the adult population level of 19,7%. The composite profile of a time-poor individual is an African-Brazilian adult woman of little education who is not necessarily income-poor and who resides in the urban areas of the northeast region. She lives in a home of few people and has children who are younger than 14 years old. The third chapter, named "A New Approach For Poverty In Brazil: A 2-dimensional Well-being Measurement" is an analysis of poverty among Brazilian families done by applying a 2-dimensional measurement which uses both income and time allocation. The methodology behind it was the one proposed by Vickery (1977) who used isoquant poverty curves customized for each type of family in order to identify the general proportion of time-poor individuals. When the critical salary solution was applied, it ended up showing which families are in the involuntary poverty state. Quite expectedly, time-poverty rates soared whenever time was accounted as a resource. That is because parents who work and especially those who lead monoparental families often do not have enough time for essential tasks. There is a higher proportion of overall poor individuals among monoparental families and among families with many children. Another interesting result shows that 19,8% of one-child single parents belong to the category of the involuntarily poor.