Regional inequalities in electricity access versus quality of life in Brazil

Abstract

One of the main inequalities in Brazil is related to electricity access and distribution. On average, 99.7% of the population have access to some type of energy, varying from 99.1% to 99.9% among the Brazilian states. However, 600 thousand Brazilians still have no access to electricity. This paper aims to relate the distribution of electricity to social and spatial inequalities in Brazilian regions. An evaluation concerning the Brazilian region's population, territorial area, and per capita income was performed. Regarding electricity access and distribution, an extensive assessment of the current Brazilian electricity sector was carried out. The findings showed that the north and northeast regions have lower per capita income, lower electricity consumption and lower electricity access than the other regions. Improving quality of life, job offer, and access to education are challenges to be faced, but the energy policy in Brazil does not yet properly contemplate these.

Assessment of the population’s quality of life in Kazakhstan during COVID-19: The effectiveness of public policy

“…The main components of human capital are education and health, which, in turn, are influenced by the quality of food consumed, the infrastructure of life, or ecology. There are more comfortable living conditions compared to countries where access to water or energy is considered a luxury in countries where digitalization, technology, including ICT, and innovation are more developed (Barlybaev et al, 2021;Zhan et al, 2022;Thives et al, 2022). Innovations and technologies create opportunities for people that have less time-consuming, labor-intensive, and energy-intensive characteristics and improve the quality of service for the population, but they also come at a high cost (Fan et al, 2016;Barlybaev et al, 2021;Zhan et al, 2022).…”

“…The main infrastructure of life (heat, water, and electricity) is required to create comfortable conditions for the development of the population. Thus, electricity supply problems negatively affect the population's QoL (Thives et al, 2022). There is a direct relationship between the quality of life and the quality of food consumed (Praskova et al, 2019).…”