A Importância Da Saúde Como Um Dos Determinantes Da Distribuição De Rendimentos E Pobreza No Brasil

One of the main social economic problems observed in the majority of countries, in particularly, in the less developed countries, is the high level of income inequality and poverty. In Brazil, these facts are especially important because our country presents one of the worst income distributions in the world that results in a gini coefficient around 0,607. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between health status, income distribution and the level of poverty in Brazil. Specifically, we are interested in evaluate how health status impacts income distribution and the level of poverty. The methodology used in this work is an adaptation of the micro simulation method proposed by Bourguignon, Ferreira e Lusting (2001). To analyse health effects over income distribution and the level of poverty we used two inequality indexes (Gini coefficient and T-Theil index) and three poverty measures - poor proportion, income gap and quadratic income gap. Our database is PNAD 98 (National Household Survey) that presents a special survey about health status and other related subjects. Our main findings points that health status affects both income distribution and level of poverty.