Inequality and income segregation in Brazilian cities: a nationwide analysis

Abstract

Residential segregation has brought significant challenges to cities worldwide and has important implications for health. This study aimed to assess income segregation in the 152 largest Brazilian cities in the SALURBAL Project. We identify specific socioeconomic characteristics related to residential segregation by income using the Brazilian demographic census of 2010 and calculated the income dissimilarity index (IDI) at the census tract level for each city, subsequently comparing it with Gini and other local socioeconomic variables. We evaluated our results' robustness using a bootstrap correction to the IDI to examine the consequences of using different income cut-offs in substantial urban and regional inequalities. We identified a two minimum wage cut-off as the most appropriate. We found little evidence of upward bias in the calculation of the IDI regardless of the cut-off used. Among the ten most segregated cities, nine are in the Northeast region, with Brazil's highest income inequality and poverty. Our results indicate that the Gini index and poverty are the main variables associated with residential segregation.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43545-022-00491-9.

Keywords: Brazil; Income dissimilarity index; Segregation; Urban inequality.

Fig. 1

Illustration of bootstrap replications. Source: Efron,

Fig. 2

Descriptive statistics for the indices. Source: Research results

Fig. 3

Statistical distribution for the income dissimilarity index. Source: Research results

Fig. 4

Income dissimilarity and Gini indices for 152 Brazilian cities, 2010. Source: SALURBAL Project

Fig. 5

Income-based Dissimilarity and Gini indices by region. Note: Regions are abbreviated as: Midwest (cw); North (n); Northeast (ne); South (s); and Southeast (se)

Fig. 6

Correlation matrix among the indices. Source: Research results