Envelhecimento e proteção social no Brasil contemporâneo: um estudo com idosos beneficiários do benefício de prestação continuada em Aracaju - SE

Abstract

The central theme of the work is the meaning of the Continuing Provision Benefit (BPC) in the lives of older people receiving this benefit. Only in 1996, BPC, guaranteed by the Constitution of 1988 and the Organic Law of Social Assistance (LOAS), was implemented in Brazil. This benefit is not lifelong and non-contributory, is presented by transferring income amounting to a minimum wage to the elderly above 65 years, and persons with disabilities considered unable to live independently and to work, and whose income per capita is less than one quarter of the minimum wage. While expressing the breakthrough of the insertion of the tripod support of the Brazilian Social Security system, which meant a break with the historical practices of Social Welfare in Brazil, marked by welfarism and favor, the BPC also expresses the limits and contradictions of Assistance public social in contemporary Brazil, given the macroeconomic policies of fiscal adjustment. In this sense, the discussion on the impacts of BPC in the lives of seniors passes necessarily by discussion of the context of Social Security and especially in social assistance policy. Similarly, it is in this context that the social construction of aging in Brazil has been taking from social changes such as unemployment, casualization of public policy changes in relationships between generations, which alter the role of the elderly in society and the inside the family arrangements. The work sought, therefore, achieve their goals, through a survey of the elderly BPC beneficiaries, in fact the city of Aracaju in Sergipe State, especially those placed in groups of coexistence developed in the frames of own Social Assistance Policy . The methodology consisted of several phases, with emphasis on the literature and the empirical. Field research could delineate the socio-demographic profile of the elderly, understanding your career and your family insertion. Twenty-five seniors were interviewed with questionnaires that allowed a quantitative and qualitative data analysis that allow understanding the impact that the BPC generated in the lives of seniors.