CARTOGRAPHIES OF AGING IN THE RURAL CONTEXT: RACE/ETHNICITY, GENDER, SCHOOLING AND SOCIAL CLASS

Abstract The present article has the goal of describing and analyzing the general social conditions regarding race/ethnicity, gender, social class and schooling among a sample of 500 subjects (n = 250 men; n = 250 women), aged 60 years or older, who are users of the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS, in the Portuguese acronym) and live in the rural area of a medium-sized municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, between 2015 and 2016. The design of the study is of a mixed nature, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques in order to describe and analyze the selected categories intersectionally. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire with closed questions regarding sociodemographic aspects. With the aid of the software IBM-SPSS (version 20.0), we produced a databank with descriptive and specific information. The obtained results confirm inequalities regarding gender and race/ethnicity, and the women who self-reported as being black are more vulnerable in terms of finances and schooling than the women who self-reported as being white and the men who self-reported as being white or black in the same age group. Lastly, the data enable us to counter the thesis that the 1988 Constitution and its adjacent policies would have provoked an interruption in the inequalities in generational terms.