Poverty in Brazilian northeast: A multidimensional analysis

Abstract

This paper maps poverty profile of Brazilian Northeast regarding the lack of consumption and housing services, and contrasting them with income insufficiency, which is the most consolidated criterion to measured poverty in the international literature.We used data from the Nacional Survey for Housing Sample (PNAD, in Portuguese), in 2009. Among the main results, we found that the Northeast region has a huge percentage of households without access to housing services and consumer items comparatively to other regions and, moreover, this region is the worst in absolute terms. In the dimension of housing items, the scarcest item in all five macro regions is piped water, followed by sanitation (sewage) and electricity. Regarding consumption items, refrigerator is the most lacking item for Brazilian households. We also show that many families below the poverty line present no insufficiency in terms of housing and consumption dimensions.