Arranjos domiciliares e vulnerabilidade ao empobrecimento: aspectos metodológicos e empíricos

Resumen

This analysis of poverty and inequalities among income levels based on domestic arrangements brings out aspects that may contribute to the implementation of social policies for overcoming poverty and promoting social development. The objective of the research was to investigate the limitations of the domestic arrangements that are most vulnerable to impoverishment. The study was motivated by the realization that, between 2001 and 2010, unequal incomes continued to exist among Brazilian metropolitan households identified as the most vulnerable to impoverishment, on the one hand, and other domestic arrangements, on the other. It was this period which saw an overall reduction in inequalities among incomes in the country, accompanied by increased employment and higher per-capita household earnings, and by improvements in policies for transferring income. The concept of gender division of labor plays a critical role in this article, as an aspect that involves both home and workplace by defining the places of men and of women in the spheres of both production and reproduction. This approach pointed out the gender division of labor as one of the challenges that limit access of female heads of households with children and adolescents to quality jobs and the overcoming poverty in the case of the most vulnerablehouseholds.