The European Employment Strategy has set the goal of raising the retirement age of workers in the EU through a strategy of "active ageing". Yet despite some progress over the last decade, empirical data show persistent diversity across EU member states. Institutional arrangements of social and...

Brazil is one of thirteen countries in the world whose social insurance system offers a pension based solely upon length of contribution, with no age requirement. This kind of benefit allows contributors to have access to pensions at relatively young ages (here defined as before 60 years old for...

Students, children under 4 years old and people aged 65 and over in Brazil are entitled to partial or full discount on urban trips using public transport systems. These discounts are not covered by public funding, but rather by the other service users who pay full-fare. In this study, we...

Using data from the Brazilian Census 2000 we estimate whether the distribution of the eligible population of the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC) would change after a modification in definition of family used to calculate family per capita income. Our results show that in 2000 the majority of...

This article discusses advances and contradictions of some proposed actions by Elder's Bill of Rights. This Bill was approved in 2003. Its main objective is to regulate the rights of older people in multiple spheres and dimensions. It gathers in a single document many of the bills and policies...

Improvement in life expectancy and population ageing are worldwide phenomena that distinguish the demographic dynamics of nowadays societies. Therefore functional dependency and the quality of life of the frail elderly have grown into major issues in public agenda. This text aims to present and...

In Brazil, as in most countries, income replacement policies for the loss of labor capacity are based on observed disability and on presumed disability caused by advanced age. The objective of this paper is to discuss the contradictions of the policies target to compensate the elderly population...

Functional dependency in elderly people has been studied in many countries where demographic changes have led to the increase in the over 60 age group. In Brazil, it has aroused interest of public agents and society due to the appearance of specific demands related to personal, domestic and...

We estimate the distributions of the eligible public, benefits and coverage levels of the Brazilian Continuous Cash Benefit Program (BPC) using survey data from the 2000 Census and the 2006 National Household Survey. The estimates show that the eligible population is uniformly distributed along...