Economia informal e o crédito habitacional: possíveis impactos no estado de Minas Gerais

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between the informal economy and housing credit, examining the possible impacts of informal income on access to mortgage financing in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It departs from the observation that Brazilian housing policy— historically structured around the National Housing Bank (BNH), the Housing Finance System (SFH) and, more recently, the Minha Casa Minha Vida program—conditions access to credit on proof of formal income, in a labor market characterized by high levels of informality. The main objective is to understand how the requirement of formal income operates as a conditional barrier to housing credit and to what extent informal income is incorporated, as a complementary component, into credit analysis. Methodologically, this is a quantitative, descriptive-analytical study based on a literature review on housing policies, housing deficit and labor market informality, and on the analysis of an administrative database from the largest housing finance agent in the country, covering contracts signed in Minas Gerais between 2019 and 2023. A continuous measure of total income is constructed by adding the upper limits of formal and informal income brackets declared by borrowers, which allows the examination of loan distribution by mesoregion, property value range, age group and sex. The results show a strong concentration of contracts in properties up to R$ 200,000, a significant increase in the volume of loans over the period and a remarkable stability in the average income profile of borrowers. The findings also reveal substantial territorial, life-cycle and gender inequalities, as well as the frequent use of informal income as a complement to formal income, especially in the lower property-value ranges, without eliminating the centrality of formal income as an eligibility criterion. The study concludes that informality is only partially incorporated by the credit system: it enables the inclusion of low-income families in specific segments of the financed housing market, while preserving the segmentation by income, territory and socio-economic profile.