ABSTRACT
This article explores how demography – through the heterogeneous spatial distribution of demands – and institutions – via the spatial specialization of provision – generate inequality in the access to welfare policies at the subnational level. We stress that nationally designed policies may not be sufficient to overcome territorial inequalities rooted in demographic, economic, or social legacies. On the contrary, policies can reproduce or enhance such inequalities when they are not complemented or compensated by other measures explicitly tailored to deal with local variation in demography or economic resources. To explore these assumptions we use Brazilian social policies as a case study. We employ a geographical descriptive analysis of official data collected at the municipal level to assess territorial inequality in key demographic and policy provision indicators.
