The stability of income inequality in Brazil, 2006-2012: an estimate using income tax data and household surveys.
OBJECTIVE
the level and evolution of income inequality among adults in Brazil between 2006 and 2012.


OBJECTIVE
to calculate the level of inequality, its trend over the years and the share of income growth appropriated by different social groups.


METHODS
We combined tax data from the Annual Personal Income Tax Returns (Declaração Anual de Ajuste do Imposto de Renda da Pessoa Física - DIRPF) and the Brazilian National Household Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios - PNAD) to construct a complete distribution of total income among adults in Brazil. We applied Pareto interpolations to income tax tabulations to arrive at the distribution within income groups. We tested the results, comparing the PNAD to the Brazilian Consumption and Expenditure Survey (Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares - POF) and to data from the Census Subsample Survey (Census.


RESULTS
We found evidence that income inequality in Brazil is higher than previously thought and that it remained stable between 2006 and 2012; in making these findings, we thus diverged from most studies on the dynamics of inequality in Brazil.. There was income growth, but the top incomes have appropriated most of this growth.
Departamento de Sociologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brasil, mclmdr@unb.br.
Marcelo
M
Medeiros
Departamento de Sociologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brasil, mclmdr@unb.br.
Pedro Herculano Guimarães Ferreira
PH
de Souza
Departamento de Sociologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brasil, mclmdr@unb.br.
Fábio Ávila
FÁ
de Castro
D001938:Brazil; D005191:Family Characteristics; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends*; D007183:Income Tax; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors