This report provides estimates of the economic cost due to productivity losses arising from absenteeism, presenteeism and early retirement due to ill health. For Brazil these losses equate to a total of 8.7% of GDP as shown in Table ES 1. This puts Brazil towards the upper end of the range for a group of 10 other countries that includes some of its Latin American peers as well as other middle income developing countries from other parts of the world.
These estimates are driven by the intersection of an ageing workforce with the high burden of chronic disease, now prevalent in developing countries. Although the proportion of Brazil’s population aged over 45 is lower than average for this group of countries, Brazil’s population is ageing quite rapidly and is thus an emerging problem for its work force. The increase in the proportion of its work force aged 50-64 out to 2030 is one of the larger of this group of countries. Moreover Brazil has a high burden fromnon-communicable diseases (NCDs). Amongst this group of countries it has relatively high levels of disease burden across a wide range of diseases which include including cardio vascular disease, mental illness, muscular skeletal and neurological conditions.
