According to the survey published recently by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the current resident population of Brazil is 203 million. In recent years, the age structure of the Brazilian population has changed significantly, the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over has continued to expand, and for the first time, the proportion of Brazilian women has tended to exceed that of men in all major regions of Brazil.
According to the 2022 census, the ageing of the Brazilian population is increasing, with the median age of the national population reaching 35 years, with the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over reaching its highest level since the first census was conducted in Brazil in 1872. According to the 1980 census, Brazil had 4 per cent of the population aged 65 or over. In 2022, the population of this age group had reached 10.9 per cent of the total population, and 57.4 per cent more than the population data at the time of the 2010 census, when the population aged 65 and over accounted for 7.4 per cent of the total population. The proportion of children under 14 years of age decreased from 38.2 per cent in 1980 to 19.8 per cent in 2022.
During the same period, the proportion of Brazilians aged 15 to 64 years increased from 57.7 per cent to 69.3 per cent. The main factor contributing to the ageing of the population in Brazil is the decrease in the average number of children per woman, and the overall fertility rate in Brazil has been declining since the 1960s as a result of factors such as greater female participation in the labour market and increased use of effective contraception. However, IGE also attributed the current ageing phenomenon in Brazil to a decline in mortality at all ages, including older persons, i.e. an increase in life expectancy.
Moreover, according to the 2022 census, the region with the highest average age in Brazil is the south-east, 37 years old, and the lowest is the north, 29 years old. The average age of the population in the state of Roraima is the youngest in Brazil, with the average age being 26 years, while the average age of the population in the state of Southern River is the highest, at 38 years, and Rio de Janeiro and Minas are the highest. The increase in the average age reflects local living standards and quality. The regions with the highest proportion of older persons aged 65 years and over in the country are the south-east (12.2 per cent of the population) and the south (12.1 per cent of the population), according to statistics from all regions of Brazil.
Statistics show that of the 203 million people currently resident in Brazil, 105 million (51.5 per cent of the total population) are women and 9,853,000 (48.5 per cent) are men. This means that more than 6 million more women than men.
The main indicator used by IBGE in this census category is called “Gender Ratio”, which takes into account the number of men and women in Brazil. If the number is less than 100, more women and more men. If the census data for the period 1980 showed that there were 98.7 males per 100 females in Brazil at that time, by 2022 the proportion had changed to 94.2 males per 100 females, and the proportion of the female population in the total Brazilian population had been increasing over the past 40 years.
When taking into account the age ratio of the two sexes in Brazil, the data show that the proportion of the population is highest among men aged 19 and below. The female population is the highest between the ages of 25 and 29 and continues to grow with age. The IGE explains that the higher proportion of the male population in the 19 and under age group is due to the higher number of births of boys in recent years and to the higher mortality rate among young men between the ages of 25 and 29 in Brazil, which results in the highest female population in this age group.
“The causes of death of these young males are related to non-natural causes, especially among the 20-40 age group, where violent factors and accidents are the two main causes. According to Isabel, a researcher at the Institute of Geography and Statistics, these two factors have led to a much higher mortality rate for men than for women.
The analysis also shows that the state of Rio de Janeiro has the highest proportion of women, with a gender ratio of 89.4 men per 100 women. The top five are the Federal District of Brasilia (100:91.1), Pernambuco (100:91.2), Sergipe (100:91.8) and Aragos (100:91.9). Mato Grosso is ranked highest among the states with the highest percentage of males, with 101.3 males per 100 females. Brazil currently has only three other states with more men than women: These are Roraima (100 women to 101.3 men), Tocantins (100 women to 101.3 men) and Acre (100 women to 100.2 men).
Photo by Marcos.
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