Housing inadequacy and income in Brazil: water supply and sewage in metropolitan areas.

This article analyses how households in Brazil, in urban areas of metropolitan regions, with distinct income ranges, can or cannot access adequate housing services, especially water supply and sanitation. In order to conduct the analysis, the concept of household inadequacy was developed. Besides descriptive analyses of the data, tests of association were conducted between household income and the existence of inadequacies. The results indicate that, besides being concentrated among low-income households, frequent and significant inadequacies are also found in high-income households. This aspect reduces the degree of association between household income and the inadequacies analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]