Including informal economy workers in contributory social protection: Current challenges in Latin America

Owing to a favourable economic situation and to national labour market and social protection policy reforms, Latin America has witnessed significant progress in social protection coverage. Some countries, however, have seen weaker progress, with stagnant coverage levels. Several factors underlie the extension of pensions and health care coverage and the formalization of the labour market: substantial improvements in the quality of employment, more flexible eligibility criteria for contributory coverage, and the strengthening of the supervisory and regulatory roles of the State. This article first addresses the link between social protection and informality in Latin America to show the relationship between informal labour markets, the lack of social protection and the scale of unpaid contributions. Also highlighted is regional progress in extending social protection as a result of labour market formalization. Countries in the region have used various policies to encourage formalization and these have also helped to reduce wage inequalities, since formalization has had especially beneficial effects on low‐income sectors. Finally, we discuss dichotomous views on social protection financing in the region that tend to place contributory and non‐contributory financing in opposition to one another but do so in favour of the latter, tend to support proposals for limited coverage, and which do not challenge the stratification of access to social protection. The move towards a convergence of benefits is deemed essential: strategies to universalize social protection in the region should not focus exclusively on increasing resources, but must address institutional change as a crucial part of the locus of innovation.     

Financing social security in Latin America: New perspectives in the light of current economic developments

The main objective of this report is to give a general overview of the different aspects of social security financing in Latin America, and also to study specific cases of substantial reforms made in the last decade. Thus, this is an attempt to set forth general ideas on the consequences of different aspects of financing which should be taken into account when different methods are being reformulated.     

Structural reform of social security pensions in Latin America: Models, characteristics, results and conclusions

The structural reform of social security pensions is the subject of international debate, and Latin America has been a pioneer of such reform. The region has gathered experience over two decades, and had an important influence on other regions. This article gathers legal and statistical data about reform in ten countries of Latin America, in order (1) to analyse the three distinct general models followed and note the characteristics of the reforms in the different countries; (2) to evaluate the performance of the reforms against nine conventional assumptions about its effects; (3) to draw useful lessons from these reforms for the region and other countries.     

Conceptualising dignity in the context of social security: Bottom-up and top-down perspectives

Dignity and social security have been closely associated since at least the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, but there is a lack of clarity around what dignity means in this context. This article explores how two key stakeholders—out-of-work benefit recipients and policymakers—understand dignity in the context of social security, drawing on qualitative research with each group. The evidence presented notes a relative absence of direct references to dignity among policymakers, although related issues are nonetheless discussed, whereas benefit recipients commonly articulate experiences of undignified treatment and the negative impact this has on their lives. This article's exploration of dignity is of particular relevance to Scotland, where recent framework legislation includes the principle that their security system should be underpinned by “respect for the dignity of individuals.” The authors propose that a social security system that protects dignity must take account of distributional, relational, and intrinsic aspects of dignity—providing sufficient income, treating users with respect, and avoiding interventions or discourses that are disrespectful and dehumanizing. Further, the authors question whether it is possible for dignity to enjoy meaningful protection within highly disciplinary conditional welfare regimes.     

Social welfare and social work: the meaning of poverty programs in Latin America

During the last decade, the concern about poverty has turned into a key issue in the government discourse, and participatory poverty programs have multiplied all over Latin America. Nevertheless, poverty and social unrest keep growing. The objective of this article is to explain this apparent paradox. First there is an analysis of the relationship between structural adjustment, the growth of poverty, and the reorientation of broad social policy away from social rights towards selective and targeted poor relief. In order to illustrate the content and operation of a typical Latin American poverty program, the Mexican National Solidarity Program is examined. The initial question posed is whether this program alleviates poverty and grants a social minimum for the poor in view of the magnitude of poverty, the quantity of resources and their allocation. Next the participatory approach of the program is analyzed in relation to the empowerment of poor groups and communities. Finally, there is a reflection on the place of social work in this program and how the role of the social worker has been transformed.     

Dynamic social security: A framework for directing change and extending coverage

The developmental path of social security organizations has typically been one of incremental but steady adaptation in order to realize improvements in organizational performance and desired social security programme outcomes. In the evolving context of ageing society and globalization, there is increasing pressure for further and more rapid adaptation. To this end, this article proposes a unifying framework for action to help all social security organizations better realize improvements in performance and desired programme outcomes. This proposed framework is called "dynamic social security". By seeking to link social security organizations' aspirations and actions more closely and positively with those of economies and society, the aim is to help better realize, at least, a basic level of social security for all.     

Risk attitudes in a social context

Many experiments have demonstrated that when evaluating payoffs, people take not only their own payoffs into account, but also the payoffs of others in their social environment. Most of this evidence is found in settings where payoffs are riskless. It is plausible that if people care about the payoffs of others, they do so not only in a riskless context, but also in a risky one. This suggests that an individual’s decision making under risk depends on the risks others in his or her environment face. This paper is the first to test whether individuals’ risk attitudes are affected by the risks others face. The results show that risk attitudes appear to be less affected by others’ risks than expected, even though the same subjects do show concerns for inequality in a riskless setting. Interestingly, we find that people prefer risks to be independent across individuals in society rather than correlated.     

Poverty and Social Policy in Latin America

Most indicators of human development in Latin America improved considerably until the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the debt crisis which hit most countries in the region during the 1980s badly dented the social record. Not only did it increase the number of people living in poverty but it led to a profound change in the nature of the development model. Neo-liberal economic thought and the lessons of the debt crisis convinced one Latin American state after another that it should follow a different development path.
Economic stabilization and structural adjustment had a profound effect on poverty in the region. Most families became poorer, particularly those living in the cities. Structural adjustment and the new economic model also modified the role of the state. Increasingly, Latin American governments stopped giving general subsidies and introduced a strategy of targeting subsidies at the poor. In places, the new strategy will no doubt provide an adequate safety net, but in others it will fail to provide sufficient help for the poor. All we can predict is that poverty will long remain regrettably common in most parts of Latin America. In places, economic growth will undoutedly reduce poverty but it is not at all easy to predict where it will be reduced. In this respect Latin America is very much like the rest of the world. Globalization has opened up local economies to international competition and offered them the prospect of selling local goods to foreign markets. How many Latin American economies will benefit from the new situation will determine how the poor will fare. Unfortunately, the state's ability to deal with any subsequent poverty has been greatly reduced. That, too, is part and parcel of the process of globalization.     

China: developmentalism and social security

China began its social security reform when the market-oriented economy was first promoted in the late 1970s. Initiatives have been taken to replace the employer-based labour insurance model with a largely social insurance model. However, it is a mistake to argue that China is pursuing a neo-liberal agenda in its social initiatives. Instead, the state has played a major role in the process. Based on a developmental analysis, it is argued that the direction of change is generally encouraging. The emerging social insurance programme has the following advantages: it widens coverage, facilitates economic development, seeks a minimum entitlement, fosters social integration, and enhances individual participation and responsibility. The creation of an economically and socially viable social insurance programme will support the economic development of the country in the twenty-first century.     

Promoting the concept of prevention in social security: issues and challenges for the International Social Security Association1

McKinnon R. Promoting the concept of prevention in social security: issues and challenges for the International Social Security Association Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 455–462 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The history of the relationship between institutional social security and the concept of prevention is a chequered one. Across much of the 20th century, the imputed importance in social policy agendas accorded to prevention, alongside protection and rehabilitation, was only rarely, and somewhat inconsistently, matched in practice. Currently, efforts are underway internationally to promote the importance of the concept in social security more systematically. A key actor in this regard is the International Social Security Association (ISSA). Focusing on the role of the ISSA, the article argues against any possible endeavours, no matter how tentative, that might seek to mainstream the concept of prevention in social security, and concludes as preferable a narrower, but more vigorous, selective approach based on institutional practice to date.     

Social Policy and Development in Latin America: The Long View

In the new development strategy currently shaping Latin America, alternative social policy models have emerged. This article argues that far from being rival alternatives, each of these models considers the wide differences among countries. The region is emerging from a century of transformation – from a traditional agrarian economy to an urban industrial one – in which countries have taken diverse historical paths. Some have almost completed this transformation, others are taking early steps, and the vast majority are living through it. State‐led transition has followed two successive development strategies. From the 1920s up to the 1980s, state developmentalism has mostly successfully assumed the twin challenges of economic and social progress. In the last two decades of the century, Latin American states adopted the policies of the Washington Consensus, which emphasized the importance of business in the framework of globalization and benefited the affluent few. However, an unambiguous shift in direction has been taking place in Latin America since the 1997 economic crisis. This article suggests that a new developmental welfare state model seems to be in the making. How will it evolve over the wider space of an increasingly integrated Latin America?     

Roasting Donald Duck: Alternative Comics and Photonovels in Latin America

A corollary of dependency theory, which has enjoyed considerable popularity among social scientists in the last fifteen years, is the notion of cultural imperialism. Simply stated, the theory holds that countries with global economic dominance reinforce their hegemonic relationship with lesser developed countries through the manipulation of mass media such as television, radio, film and comic books. A number of radical critiques of Latin America mass media have appeared in response to this perceived relationship. In her article, Cornelia Butler Flora examines several Latin American comic books and photonovels which were created as alternatives to commercial controlled media forms. For example, in Chile during the short-lived presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973), the government publishing house Quimanto brought together artists and communications specialists to produce comic books which would serve as the socialist answer to Donald Duck andbther publications that were seen as purveyors of caplitalist values. Flora also draws on other examplles of comic books and photonovels from Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.     

Chile and beyond: The second-generation pension reforms in Latin America

In the early 1990s, pension reforms leading to substantial changes in the organization and financing of old age security were undertaken in Argentina, Colombia and Peru. Implemented ten years after the pioneer reforms in Chile, they have taken advantage of the experiences and lessons of the Chilean case; at the same time, the second-generation reforms clearly demonstrate the restrictions policy makers are being faced with in a democratic political context. This paper examines the recent pension reform experiences in Latin America and discusses their implications for a modified concept of old age security.