Families headed by women and afro-descendants are the ones that have lost the most quality of life

In a context of social inequality in Brazil, families headed by women, blacks, browns and people with less education and income suffer a greater loss of quality of life.

The conclusion is a new index released this Friday (26) by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). This is the IPQV (Loss of Quality of Life Index).

The study, of an experimental nature, uses variables from the 2017 and 2018 POF (Family Budget Survey), also produced by the institute.

To calculate the loss of quality of life in different population groups, the IPQV looks at a series of indicators in the areas of housing, public utilities, health and food, education, access to financial services, transport and leisure.

The index goes from zero to one. The closer to zero, the smaller is the loss of quality of life for the group in question.

In other words, lower values ​​signal that people are in a situation considered closer to the ideal in terms of well-being.

Between 2017 and 2018, Brazil had IPQV of 0.158. At the time, the country still suffered the consequences of economic recession registered in previous years.

In the division by groups, it is possible to observe that the loss of quality of life was greater in families headed by women (0.169) than in those with men as reference persons (0.151).

The female index surpassed the national average, while the male index was below.

The difference also appears when cropping by color or race. According to the study, families headed by blacks and browns had an estimated IPQV of 0.185, higher than that of whites (0.123) and 17% above the national value (0.158).

According to IBGE, the intention of the survey is to build a form of comparison that shows the inequalities between groups.

The loss of quality of life also changes depending on the population’s education and income.

In the analysis by level of education, families headed by uneducated people have the highest IPQV: 0.255.

At the other end of the list are families whose reference person had completed higher education. The index for this layer was 0.076, the lowest in the survey. It is less than half the value of Brazil (0.158).

According to IBGE, the loss of quality of life decreases as income grows. In terms of income, the group of the poorest 10% had the highest IPQV, calculated at 0.260.

The result is equivalent to more than four times the index of the richest 10%, estimated at 0.063, the lowest in the study.

There are also analyzes by regions and states. North (0.225) and Northeast (0.209) showed worse rates than the national (0.158).

The Midwest (0.159), in turn, was in line with the Brazilian data. The South (0.115) and Southeast (0.127) regions had a better IPQV than the national one.

Among the 27 units of the federation, Maranhão showed the greatest loss of quality of life, with IPQV equal to 0.260. Santa Catarina registered the lowest (0.100).