Population dynamics and socioeconomic indicators in intramunicipal scale: Municipalities of Altamira and São Félix do Xingu, Pará State, between 2000 and 2010

Abstract

This works deals with the internal socioeconomic differences on the municipalities of Altamira and São Félix do Xingu, Pará state, situated on the frontier expansion of Amazonia The methodology comprises three procedures. The first, acquiring information, was the construction of 52 socioeconomic indicators (illiteracy, income) and demographic indicators (age structure, sex ratio) referred to intra-municipal level. The source used was the Demographic Census of 2000 and 2010 and the 2007 Population Count, by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), that present data aggregated by census tracts (between 100 and 300, depending on the year), which is the smallest unit data representation. The second procedure, processing information, was the definition of 29 intra and trans municipal spatial units by grouping census tracts according to their situation (rural and urban) and type of locality (village, town, city) and criteria that enable the monitoring of its temporal trajectory (2000-2010). The third, supported by the Bertin's "weighted and exchangeable matrix", permitting the "cross" of the 52 indicators with 29 spatial units, led to the construction of 11 units of these clusters, allowing the verification of socioeconomical differences (and similarities) between them. Since the object of analysis, designed by the methodology, is intramunicpal space, it becomes possible to capture existing socioeconomic differences between: (1) urban and rural spatial units; (2) urban spatial units of different types; (3) rural units located within and outside protected areas; and (4) rural units located in two types of protected areas (indigenous lands and conservation units). The results obtained allows synchronic analysis, by comparing between indicators of different classes in the same year and explain correlations between indicators of the same group, such as income and illiteracy; and diachronic, in order to assess and correlate the temporal evolution of different indicators in the same group and the same indicator for the different groups. On a more general level, it is considered that the characteristics of the developed methodology make its use possible to evaluate existing socioeconomic differences among population clusters that transcend municipal division designed according to criteria of different natures.