Relações entre dados e estudos populacionais no Brasil: um estudo de caso do PPGDEM, de 2013 a 2020

Abstract

Brazil has been the stage for the diversification of population data production activities on multiple aspects. Much of this data can be attributed to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), ministries, notary offices, health and education units, institutions that compile indicators, private companies, among others. This diversity of institutions reflects different methodological characteristics, levels of territorial, temporal and thematic coverage of national data, which can influence different aspects of demographic studies in the country. In this context, the main objective of this study was to verify how national data sources may have influenced approaches to themes, spaces and periods of analysis in population studies produced in Brazil, using as reference dissertations defended in the post-Graduate Program in Demography of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (PPgDEM/UFRN), from 2013 to 2020. The hypotheses of this study were three: 1) the choices of themes and data are differentiated by the individual characteristic sex of the student author of the dissertation; 2) the more specific the object of study, in terms of time and geographic unit analyzed, the scarcer are the official data that allow its development; 3) the dissertations developed at PPgDem in the analyzed period contributed to the development of research on the Demography of the Northeast Region. Considering the PPgDem as a case study, a database was built from information extracted from 72 dissertations defended in that program from 2013 to 2020. In general, the descriptive analyzes indicated a predominance of defenses from female and female students. preference for themes according to the student's gender. However, the source of information used did not vary substantially in relation to the student's gender, therefore, partially confirming hypothesis 1. As for the characteristics of the data used, it was found that there was a predominance of census data from the IBGE and administrative records from federal ministries. However, to support studies for small areas, more regional or researchers' own data sources were used, and these cases were a minority in the set of analyzed dissertations. These results confirmed hypothesis 2. The most explored geographic units were Brazil and the Greater Region, with emphasis on the Northeast Region, confirming hypothesis 3. It is suggested for future studies an analysis considering the other teaching and research centers in studies and inclusion of other characteristics of the dissertations and authors and methods of qualitative data analysis.