The relationship between income and living alone for the elderly in the City of São Paulo, Brazil, 2000

Abstract

The number of people living alone in São Paulo is not high compared to other living arrangements, but the number of elderly people living alone has been increasing over the years. The present study discusses the relationship between income and living alone among the elderly in the City of São Paulo, 2000, using the SABE database. Since living alone is influenced by demographic, socioeconomic and health-related aspects, these variables were also considered in this study, and a binary logistic regression was used. Two models were built. Model 1 included only income as a predictor; model 2 included other variables and income as predictors. The results show a significant association between income and living alone. Even after controlling for other explanatory variables, income remained significant.