•  brasilia
• Tuesday, May 03, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Following its first-ever fully digital census, Brazil has announced a total national population of 190,755,799 inhabitants in 2010. This figure, announced by The Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE), indicates 12.3 percent relative growth since 2000.

Results show a twenty-fold increase from first census, with concentrated growth in urban regions. Brazil’s 2010 census results demonstrate that the population has grown nearly twenty-fold from the first census in 1872 when the country had 9,930,478 inhabitants. The results indicate that Brazil’s population today is mostly concentrated in the urban Southeast, Northeast and South regions of the country, which are home to 42.1 percent, 27.8 percent and 14.4 percent of the total population, respectively. In fact, the 2010 results show an increase of nearly 23 million urban residents from the previous census, shifting the total urban population in Brazil from 81.2 percent in 2000 to 84.4 percent in 2010. The six most populous states — São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul and Parana — represent a combined total of 58.7 percent of the population of Brazil. The 2010 census demonstrated noticeable trends in the demographic distributions of the Brazilian population, including an increasing rate of females to males and an aging population. The 2010 results show a ratio of 96.0 males for every 100 females in Brazil, or roughly 3.9 million more women than men. This result accentuates the historical trend of female predominance in the Brazilian population. The 2000 ratio was 96.9 males for every 100 women.

In terms of age distributions, the 2010 data show a steady decline in the population aged 0-25 years old. Absolute growth in the last ten years was primarily due to the growth of the adult population, particularly in the elderly population. Males aged zero to four years old, for example, represented 5.7 percent of the total population in 1991, while females in the same age group accounted for 5.5 percent. These percentages fell to 4.9 percent and 4.7 percent in 2000, and further declined to just 3.7 percent and 3.6 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the population aged 65+ years has grown from 4.8 percent in 1991, to 5.9 percent in 2000 and 7.4 percent in 2010. Household density in Brazil declined 13.2 percent from 2000 to 2010, from 3.8 residents per household in 2000 to 3.3 in 2010. This trend was detected in both in urban and rural areas. The 2010 census was the first fully digital census for Brazil and among the most advanced statistical production programs in the world. Using GPS-equipped handheld devices, digital maps, satellite images and Internet data transmission, IBGE increased the speed and efficiency of gathering and disclosing information from the country’s 67.5 million households. The undertaking required 230,000 employees and an investment of R$ 1.2 billion in 2010 to execute. The technological innovations used in the 2010 Brazil census led IBGE to be recognized as one of ten organizations awarded by UNESCO and Netexplorateur (a French NGO) in February 2011 for the development of digital society. In the coming months, IBGE will release new data from the 2010 census on the territorial structure of the country and new social, economic, demographic and household data.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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