Centro de Políticas Sociais

The Population Perception book presented here has as its main objective to present a panel of indicators of the population's perception aimed at subsidizing reflections and actions of the State and society. The Ipea based research conducted allows us to verify how the population from different economic strata and social segments perceive aspects related to the design of different public policies. In this way, it provides subsidies to the State to better understand and act more effectively in meeting the demands of citizens, and also provides instruments for society to demand actions from their governments that are more in line with their needs and concerns based on representative samples of data. With this initiative, Ipea started to occupy an important space in the production of primary data and analysis of social perception that is still incipient in the country. In addition to providing data and analysis on people's perceptions, these surveys also allow for international comparisons. The initiative was awarded, in 2013, by the United Nations (UN) for its contribution to the My World survey, which addresses the choice of priority themes with a view of defining the new Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for the period after 2015. This book, in its first part, discusses structuring themes for the country, from the perspective of the population on the world of work; quality of public education; the causes of poverty and the means to overcome it; the situation of urban mobility and issues of public security and national defense. The second part, of a more transversal nature, deals with perceptions of social structure, values and democracy in Brazil, media and means of communication. In addition to these themes, the book deals with the economics of happiness, analysing the behavior of Brazilians' individual and collective well-being and the relationship between life satisfaction and income from an international perspective. Finally, it proposes the creation of a synthetic perceived human development index (PHDI) for a set of more than one hundred countries based on dozens of questions about perceptions applied to the issue of education, work, income and health. The book, therefore, provides a rich panorama of the perceptions of Brazilians about aspects of their lives and of the country, in particular with regard to public policies.