Centro de Políticas Sociais

This study describes access rates to different types of assets by age groups. The availability of new data sources provides unmatched conditions to do this, in the Brazilian case. The assessment of resources possession was structured under three headings: physical capital (financial assets, durable goods, housing and public services), human capital (schooling, technical education, experience and health) and social capital (participation in political parties, trade unions, associations and family structure).

Special emphasis is given to quantifying the capital of those over 60. According to the 2000 Demographic Census, this group numbered 14.5 million Brazilians, practically triple the over 60 population in 1970, as shown in Figure 1. In the last decade the over 60 population has increased 47% as compared to a 15.7% increase in overall population.

The objective of the dynamic analysis used in this study is to evaluate the access rate of one generation to a specific resource. Methodologically speaking, it would be better if we could have access to long-term panel data enabling us to follow up on the history of specific persons. For lack of such information, we use cohorts, also known as pseudo-panels. With pseudo-panels, we are able to survey successive years and follow the access rate of a given generation over a period of time, joining data of successive years for one group with the same year of birth. In this way, we attempt to have a more exact measure of the life cycle trajectory of a given variable.

A análise dinâmica aqui empreendida tem como objetivo avaliar a taxa de acesso de uma geração a um determinado recurso. Em termos metodológicos, o ideal seria que dispuséssemos de dados de painel de longa duração, de forma que se pudesse acompanhar a história de pessoas específicas. Na falta dessa informação utilizamos coortes, também conhecidas como pseudopainéis, em que usamos pesquisas de sucessivos anos para acompanhar a taxa de acesso de uma dada geração ao longo do tempo, unindo os dados entre os sucessivos anos de um grupo com o mesmo ano de nascimento. Procuramos, dessa forma, ter uma dimensão mais exata da trajetória do ciclo da vida de uma dada variável dos idosos de hoje.