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Inequalities in the access to water and sanitation services in the North and the Nordeste of Brazil: what lessons for social justice?

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  • Alexandre BERTHE

Abstract

Even if environmental issues are mostly studied as stakes for sustainability and future generations, the state of the environment, and more especially essential goods such as water and sanitation services, is a factor which influences the current well-being of individuals and is a central stake for environmental justice. However, the access to water and sanitation services is almost exclusively evaluated using the percentage of households with access to these services. From this observation, the objective of this paper is to present methods in order to evaluate the equity of the distribution of these services for households of two Brazilian regions: the North and the Nordeste. For that purpose, we build an indicator of access to water and sanitation services using the consumer expenditure survey realized in 2008/2009 by the IBGE and we measure the access inequalities using various inequality and concentration measurement tools. This paper shows that access inequalities are different from income inequalities, and for that reason, their evaluation is required for a better understanding of the social situation of households.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre BERTHE, 2016. "Inequalities in the access to water and sanitation services in the North and the Nordeste of Brazil: what lessons for social justice?," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2016-07, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    • Handle: RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2016-07
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    File URL: http://cahiersdugretha.u-bordeaux.fr/2016/2016-07.pdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Brazil; Water and Sanitation; Environmental inequalities; Social Justice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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