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Key Text Households and Income: Ageing and Gender Inequalities in Urban Brazil and Colombia

Author: Maria Cristina Gomes da Conceição
Date: 2002
Size: 21 pages (128 KB)

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Summary

How are social policy and pension reforms affecting the welfare of the elderly in Brazil and Colombia? What impact are these reforms having on family structure? This paper from the Journal of Developing Societies finds that universal pension reform can mitigate the economic and domestic exclusion of poorer and rural elderly while an individual saving pension system can reinforce inequalities and reproduce gender roles of domestic submission and dependence.

Brazil and Colombia’s populations are ageing rapidly, putting increasing pressure on support systems. Both countries have reformed their pension systems. In Brazil, reforms extended benefits to cover informal and rural workers. Colombia did not universalise pensions, but created two pension systems, one for poorer and one for richer workers, reinforcing social inequalities. Individuals contribute according to their ability to save.

The universal or individual nature of the new pension system redefines gender, generational, and socioeconomic inequalities. Brazil’s universal pension system allows the elderly to choose to live alone or with adult children. Colombia’s individual saving pension system has reinforced dependence for poorer elderly women.

Gender and generational inequalities show significant country and institutional differences, with implications for household structure. These differences depend on elderly men and women’s ability to give and receive monetary support and to choose their living arrangements. Monetary and institutional resources determine possibilities for exchanging resources within the household, as well as domestic and physical support.

In Colombia, the pension system does not redistribute resources between generations. Few elderly men or women have pensions or salaries. Co-residence is the main support for the elderly.
In Brazil, generations do not co-reside as frequently as in Colombia. Salaries and universal pensions enable the elderly to support themselves. Much intergenerational dependency has been resolved by pensions.
In Colombia, generational exchange occurs within co-resident households. Adult children provide monetary resources and the elderly contribute domestic work, including cleaning and childcare.
In Colombia, elderly women are less likely to have pensions than men because they are less likely to have been in the labour market. In Brazil, elderly women benefit from the universal pension system, enabling them to live in separate households, or contribute financially to intergenerational households.
Co-residence is not only a cultural preference. In Colombia it is often a response to the lack of monetary and institutional support for the elderly.

Policies aimed at decreasing social inequalities and supporting the elderly target the family as a unit. However, these policies can accentuate families’ difficulties during economic crisis and generate conflict between generations.

Family-oriented policies can affect relationships between women and their families, and encourage women to work without remuneration. They can reinforce women’s role as main caregivers for different generations, including the elderly.
Families’ capacity to use their members to complement income and provide support is decreasing in Latin America. In economic crises, elderly members who cannot contribute financially to an impoverished household can be excluded.
The absence of institutional resources reinforces this reproduction of poverty between generations and increases the risk of abandonment for the poorest elderly.

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Source: Gomes da Conceição, M. C., 2002, 'Households and Income: Ageing and Gender Inequalities in Urban Brazil and Colombia', Journal of Developing Societies, Volume 18, Numbers 2-3, pp. 149-168