Poverty Among The Elderly: An Application of a Collective Consumption Model in Brazil

The growth of the elderly population and changes in household composition raise important questions regarding the level of well-being of the elderly in developing countries. Traditional analyses of poverty often ignore the question of intra-household distribution of resources. This paper is the first to apply a collective consumption model to analyze the level of well-being of the elderly in Brazil. Our results indicate that living in a couple is associated with considerable economies of scale and that wive’s shares are increasing as total expenditures increase. We find that, in Brazil, elderly women experience a considerable decrease in material well-being when living alone, compared to elderly men. Finally, we conclude that disregarding the intra-household distribution of resources results in both underestimates and overestimates poverty among the elderly in Brazil.