Below the line: Poverty in Latin America (original) (raw)

Poverty in Latin America: trends (1986-1998) and determinants

CUADERNOS DE …, 2001

This paper analyzes the evolution of poverty in Latin America. In 1998, about a third of the population was poor, and one sixth extreme poor. This represents 179 million poor people, of which 89 million lived in extreme poverty. The share of the population in poverty has decreased in the 1990s, and it is now back to its level of the mid 1980s. But due to population growth, the number of the poor has increased over the last fifteen years. The paper also investigates the impact of household characteristics on poverty, including demographics, education, employment, geographic location, migration, and ethnicity. Many of these characteristics have large impacts on per capita income and thereby on the probability of being poor or extremely poor.

Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America, 1970-1995

SSRN Electronic Journal, 1997

This work assesses the changes in aggregate poverty and inequality that have taken place in Latin America during the past 26 years. With this objective, we put together the largest number of observations on income distribution for the region for the period 1970-1995. We find that poverty and inequality have not declined during the 1990s in spite of improvements at the macroeconomic level. The characteristics of our data allow us to perform various comparisons between countries. Our results show that even though there are differences in levels across countries, inequality and poverty in most of them follow similar trends during the period under study.

Growth, inequality, and poverty in Latin America: historical evidence, controlled conjectures

2005

How have growth and inequality affected poverty reduction in Latin America over the long run? On the basis of the available evidence on growth and inequality tentative answers and conjectures are proposed about the long run evolution of poverty in Latin America. Modern Latin America experienced sustained growth since mid nineteenth century only brought to a halt during the 1980s. Inequality, in turn, rose steadily until a high plateau in which it has stabilized over the last four decades of the twentieth century. A calibration exercise on the basis of Lopez and Serven (2005) recent empirical research suggests that absolute poverty has experienced a long-run decline in Latin America since the late nineteenth century, interrupted in the 1890s and the 1930s, and only reversed in the 1980s. Growth emerges as the main element underlying the reduction in absolute poverty, and almost exclusively in the second half of the twentieth century.

Growth Patterns, Income Distribution and Poverty: Lessons from the Latin American Experience

2008

This paper explores some of the factors linking income growth, income distribution and poverty, historically observed in LACs, with particular reference to the recent experiences in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. Given that the LACs have historically shown a high level of income concentration by all measures along with a high level of poverty which has invited a multitude of interpretations, this paper tries to analytically explore some myths on Latin American income distribution that are ingrained in the conventional literature.

The impact of inequality in Latin America

America and other developing regions should focus not only on eliminating poverty and deprivation but also on preventing and reducing inequality. By inequality we refer not only to differences in income or consumption between population groups but also to divergences in the access to social and political rights (education, health care, voting, and so on). Although conceptually related, poverty and inequality are two distinct phenomena and it is possible that falls in poverty may be accompanied by increases in inequality and vice-versa. In fact, many Latin America countries have experienced the former in recent years. In the long-term, however, persistent inequalities as those observed in the Latin America region will undermine efforts to reduce poverty and destitution due to the emergence of poverty traps caused by the impossibility of economic and social mobility of certain population groups. This will have important consequences for the challenge of achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty worldwide by 2015. In addition, persistently high inequalities will also impact negatively on crucial economic, social and political variables and will thus seriously undermine the success of any development strategies.

The magnitude of poverty in Latin America

CEPAL Review

The Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean prepares the CEPAL Review. The views expressed in the signed articles, including the contributions of Secretariat staff members, are the personal opinion of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Organization. LC/G.1631-P August 1990 Notes and explanation of symbols The following symbols are used in tables in the Review: Three dots (...) indicate that data are not available or are not separately reported. A dash (-) indicates that the amount is nil or negligible. A blank space in a table means that the item in question is not applicable. A minus sign (-) indicates a deficit or decrease, unless otherwise specified. A point (.) is used to indicate decimals. A slash (/) indicates a crop year or fiscal year, e.g., 1970/1971. Use of a hyphen (-) between years, e.g., 1971-1973, indicates reference to the complete number of calendar years involved, including the beginning and end years. Reference to "tons" mean metric tons, and to "dollars", United States dollars, unless otherwise stated. Unless otherwise stated, references to annual rates of growth or variation signify compound annual rates. Individual figures and percentages in tables do not necessarily add up to corresponding totals, because of rounding.

Income and Beyond: Multidimensional Poverty In Six Latin American Countries Diego Battiston

2009

This paper presents empirical results of a wide range of multidimensional poverty measures for: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay, for the period 1992–2006. Six dimensions are analysed: income, child attendance at school, education of the household head, sanitation, water and shelter. Over the study period, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Chile experienced significant reductions of multidimensional poverty. In contrast, in urban Uruguay there was a small reduction in multidimensional poverty, while in urban Argentina the estimates did not change significantly. El Salvador, Brazil and Mexico together with rural areas of Chile display significantly higher and more simultaneous deprivations than urban areas of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In all countries, access to proper sanitation and education of the household head are the highest contributors to overall multidimensional poverty.