Argentina: Impacts of the child allowance programme on the labour-market behaviour of adults

In 2009 Argentina implemented the Universal Child Allowance for Social Protection (AUH), a cash transfer programme for households with children. Coverage provided by the contributory family allowance programme was extended to parents who are unemployed or who work in the informal sector (domestic workers, for example). This paper uses the difference-in-difference estimator and propensity score matching techniques to evaluate the short-term effects of the auh on adult labour participation and income generation. The results suggest that, during its first year of operation, no significant disincentives to work were generated by the programme, given that it did not discourage adults from working or lead to a reduction in the number of hours worked. These findings are highly relevant in the Latin American context where these kinds of cash transfers have become an important component of social protection systems.

Human rights and the child

Includes bibliography

The invisible face of child labour in Latin America and the Caribbean

Child labour has a gender bias related to the dominant stereotypes regarding gender roles. While out-of-home paid work is carried out predominantly by boys, girls bear the greater burden in unpaid domestic tasks, whether in their own homes or the homes of others. Boys are more exposed to the risks of being out on the street and find it more difficult to combine work and education. For girls it may be easier to reconcile the spheres of work and education, but they suffer costs that remain hidden and that reinforce their disadvantages throughout the life cycle. On the one hand, they are marked by the assumption that the burden of the care economy is entirely their responsibility, which determines future labour prospects. Indeed, even when girls show greater educational achievement, their occupational options are more limited. On the other hand, girls are exposed to risk within the household, where overexploitation, maltreatment and abuse are as frequent as they are unpunished.

Building equity from the beginning: the children and adolescents of Ibero-America

Includes bibliography

The United States and Latin America and the Caribbean: Highlights of economics and trade

Foreword by Alicia Bárcena

Economics of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean: summary 2010

Spanish version available at the Library

Multilateral rules on competition policy: an overview of the debate

Includes bibliography

Inclusion of the European Nordic model in the debate concerning social protection reform: the long-term development of Nordic welfare systems (1890-2005) and their transferability to Latin America in the twenty-first century

Includes bibliography

The expansion model of the major Chilean retail chains

Includes bibliography

The status of biodiversity and bioprospecting efforts in the Caribbean subregion

Includes bibliography

An evaluative study of the implementation of domestic violence legislation: Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitss

Includes bibliography

The United States and Latin America and the Caribbean: highlights of economy and trade

Document prepared on the occasion of the visit of President Barack Obama to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador in March 2011

The right of children and adolescents to a healthy environment. A diagnosis from Latin America and the Caribbean

Healthy environment: unresolved debts that affect childhood and adolescenceIn this new edition, we point out the right of children and adolescents to live in a healthy environment with emphasis on adequate access to drinking water and sanitation, including diagnosis as well as policy perspective. It is our contribution to the challenges set out by the Millennium Development Goals and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Rights of Indigenous Children

While children in general are overrepresented among those living in poverty, a long history of discrimination and exclusion has ensured that indigenous children in Latin America and the Caribbean are in an even worse position. In the general population 63% of children aged under 18 years live in poverty, as measured by privation of the basic rights to well-being; however, that figure is as high as 88% among indigenous children in the same age group. This is a violation of these children's rights —including their rights to survival and development— and entails high costs for society in terms of productive capacity and social inclusion. That is the thrust of the argument in the central article of this issue of Challenges, which focuses on poverty among indigenous children. The data show a pattern of inequality that is highly detrimental to indigenous children: they make up a disproportionate number of those living in extreme poverty and are three times more likely to lack access to education, safe drinking water and housing than other children. It is a matter of particular concern that in the countries of the Andean Community 5 of every 10 indigenous children under the age of 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition.This edition includes brief testimonies by indigenous children as to what their life is like; an interview with Marta Maurás, Vice-Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, on the international mechanisms in place to safeguard the rights of indigenous children; and, lastly, an article on the Uantakua programme in Mexico, which uses information and communication technologies in bilingual schools with large indigenous populations.

The software and information technology services industry: An opportunity for the economic autonomy of women in Latin America

The objective of this report is to understand the rationality that underpins public and business policies for promoting the IT and SIS industries and to determine whether they incorporate gender equality and/or provide incentives for women’s participation. The report also explores how this group of women is symbolically constructed within the firms, what issues are emphasized by the women themselves and what solutions or resources they propose for overcoming the problems. It then contrasts this discourse and intervention with the experiences, visions and demands of women leaders in the SIS sector. For this purpose, the policies, programmes and best practices of Europe are analysed and compared with instruments currently in place in Latin America and the Caribbean, in terms of their specific characteristics and degree of progress. Special attention is given to the cases of Argentina, Costa Rica and Colombia.