Panorama Social da América Latina 2014. Síntese

Nesta edição de 2014 do Panorama Social da América Latina se apresentam as medições realizadas pela CEPAL da pobreza por renda e se analisa a pobreza a partir de uma ótica multidimensional. A aplicação destes dois enfoques aos dados sobre os países da região permite reforçar a ideia de que, para além dos avanços alcançados na última década, a pobreza persiste como um fenômeno estrutural que caracteriza a sociedade latino-americana. Com o objeto de contribuir a uma formulação mais abrangente das políticas públicas para superar a pobreza e a desigualdade socioeconômica, ademais de examinar as tendências recentes do gasto social, o documento se aprofunda na análise de brechas em três âmbitos: juventude e desenvolvimento, desigualdade de gênero no mercado de trabalho e segregação residencial urbana.

Women's contribution to equality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

The contribution of women to the economy and social protection specially in relation to unpaid work performed by women in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Two stops in today's new global geographies: shaping novel labor supplies and employment regimes

Includes bibliography

The economic and financial crisis: its impact on poverty, work and women's time

Incluye Bibliografía

Part-time work in Chile: is it precarious employment?: reflections from a gender perspective

Includes bibliography

In search of work. International migration of women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Selected bibliography

Includes bibliography

Employment, growth and reforms in Jamaica

Includes bibliography

What kind of State? what kind of equality?: XI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Brasilia, 13-16 July 2010

Available also in spanish and portuguese

What kind of State? What kind of equality? XI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Brasilia, 13-16 July 2010. Summary

The document What kind of State? What kind of equality? analyses the progress of gender equality in the region 15 years after the approval of the Beijing Platform for Action, 10 years after the drafting of the Millennium Development Goals and 3 years after the adoption of the Quito Consensus at the tenth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in 2007. It also examines the achievements made and challenges faced by governments in light of the interaction between the State, the market and families as social institutions built on the foundation of policies, laws, and customs and habits which, together, establish the conditions for renewing or perpetuating gender and social hierarchies.

Women in the digital economy: breaking through the equality threshold

Prepared by ECLAC for the twelfth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, this document systematizes and describes various dimensions that shape the way the region's women participate in the labour market and how they access and use the different elements of the digital economy. Information and communications technologies (ICTs); provide essential support across all economic, political, cultural and social activity, as well as being a production sector in their own right. As such, they are potential allies in the drive to achieve equality by helping reduce the gender inequities which constitute not only a gender digital gap but also a social divide. Public policies on gender equality must take into account the key and interconnected dimensions of economy, well-being and technology if they are to be capable of providing an ambitious and innovative response to the challenges of today's society. The core argument in the reflection on ICTs and gender equality thus has to do with how women engage in processes of change and sustainable development in the countries, which cannot be achieved without equal participation by men and women. From this perspective, the gender digital gap offers a specific opportunity to tackle gender inequalities in the region.

Women in the digital economy: breaking through the equality threshold. Summary

Prefacio Prepared by ECLAC for the twelfth session of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, this document systematizes and describes various dimensions that shape the way the region's women participate in the labour market, and how they access and use the different elements of the digital economy. Information and communications technologies (ICTs) provide essential support across all economic, political, cultural and social activity, as well as being a production sector in their own right. As such, they are potential allies in the drive to achieve equality by helping reduce the gender inequities which constitute not only a gender digital gap but also a social divide. Public policies on gender equality must take into account the key and interconnected dimensions of economy, well-being and technology if they are to be capable of providing an ambitious and innovative response to the challenges of today's society. The core argument in the reflection on ICTs and gender equality thus has to do with how women engage in processes of change and sustainable development in the countries, which cannot be achieved without equal participation by men and women. From this perspective, the gender digital gap offers a specific opportunity to tackle gender inequalities in the region.

The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Labour productivity and distribution issues

Although the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean grew more slowly in 2011 than in 2010, there were some improvements on the employment front. Workers benefited from the region’s satisfactory economic performance in an increasingly complex international setting. The unemployment rate fell from 7.3% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2011 thanks to a halfpercentage- point gain in the urban employment rate. Both rates are at levels that have not been seen for a long time. The proportion of formal jobs with social benefits rose as well, and underemployment declined. The average wage and the minimum wage both increased in real terms, albeit only moderately. Economic performance and the employment situation varied widely among the subregions. The unemployment rate dropped by 0.6 percentage points in South America but 0.4 percentage points in the countries of the northern part of Latin America. In the countries of the Caribbean, the employment rate was up by 0.2 percentage points. The data show that substantial labour market gaps and serious labour-market insertion issues remain. This is especially the case for women and young people, for whom unemployment rates and other labour indicators are still unfavourable. The second part of this report looks at whether the fruits of economic growth and rising productivity have been distributed equitably between workers and companies. Between 2002 and 2008 (the most recent expansionary economic cycle), wages as a percentage of GDP fell in 13 of the 21 countries of the region for which data are available and rose in just 8. This points to redistribution that is unfavourable to workers, which is worrying in a region which already has the most unequal distribution of income in the world. Underlying this trend is the fact that, worldwide, wages have grown less than productivity. Beyond the ethical dimension of this issue, it jeopardizes the social and economic sustainability of growth. For example, one of the root causes of the recent financial crisis was that households in the United States responded to declining wage income by borrowing more to pay for consumption and housing. This turned out to be unsustainable in the long run. Over time, it undermines the labour market’s contribution to the efficient allocation of resources and its distributive function, too, with negative consequences for democratic governance. Among the triggers of this distributive worsening most often cited in the global debate are market deregulation and its impact on financial globalization, technological change that favours capital over labour, and the weakening of labour institutions. What is needed here is a public policy effort to help keep wage increases from lagging behind increases in productivity. Some countries of the region, especially in South America, saw promising developments during the second half of the 2000s in the form of a positive trend reversal in wages as a percentage of GDP. One example is Brazil, where a minimum wage policy tailored to the dynamics of the domestic market is considered to be one of the factors behind an upturn in the wage share of GDP. The region needs to grow more and better. Productivity must grow at a steady pace, to serve as the basis for sustained improvements in the well-being of the populace and to narrow the gap between the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean and the more advanced economies. And inequality must be decreased; this could be achieved by closing the productivity gap between upgraded companies and the many firms whose productivity is low. As set out in this report, the region made some progress between 2002 and 2010, with labour productivity rising at the rate of 1.5% a year. But this progress falls short of that seen in other regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa (2.1%) and, above all, East Asia (8.3%, not counting Japan and the Republic of Korea). Moreover, in many of the countries of the region these gains have not been distributed equitably. Therein lies a dual challenge that must be addressed: continue to increase productivity while enhancing the mechanisms for distributing gains in a way that will encourage investment and boost worker and household income. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimate that the pace of economic growth in the region will be slightly slower in 2012 than in 2011, in a global economic scenario marked by the cooling of several of the main economic engines and a high degree of uncertainty concerning, above all, prospects for the euro zone. The region is expected to continue to hold up well to this worsening scenario, thanks to policies that leveraged more favourable conditions in the past. This will be felt in the labour markets, as well, so expectations are that unemployment will edge down by as much as two tenths of a decimal point.

The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Crisis and the labour market

Since the financial and economic crisis began to affect the real economy and spread throughout the world, the region’s economies have been faced with a situation where data on employment and labour reflect the real stories of millions of women and men for whom the future has become uncertain. When these problems began to appear, the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned that the world faced a global employment crisis whose consequences could lead to a social recession. As the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has pointed out, the outbreak of the crisis put an end to a five-year period of sustained growth and falling unemployment. As early as the second half of 2008, the figures began to reflect slowing economic growth, while a downward slide began in the labour market. This initial bulletin, produced jointly by ECLAC and ILO, seeks to review the ways in which the crisis is affecting the region’s labour markets. Amidst a situation characterized by shocks and uncertainty, governments and social partners must have the inputs needed for designing public policies to increase the population’s levels of employment and well-being. It is planned to produce two further bulletins by January 2010, in order to measure the impact of the crisis on employment and provide an input to the process of defining the best public policies to reverse its consequences. The bulletin reviews the most recent available indicators and analyses them in order to establish trends and detect variations. It provides statistics for the first quarter, estimates for the rest of 2009, and a review of policies announced by the Governments. In 2008, the last year of the growth cycle, the region’s urban unemployment stood at 7.5%. According to economic growth forecasts for 2009, the average annual urban unemployment rate for the region will increase to between 8.7% and 9.1%; in other words, between 2.8 million and 3.9 million additional people will swell the ranks of the unemployed. Data for the first quarter of 2009 already confirm that the crisis is hitting employment in the region. Compared with the first quarter of 2008, the urban unemployment rate was up by 0.6 percentage points, representing over a million people.Work will continue until September 2009 on the preparation of a new report on the employment situation, using data updated to the first half of 2009. This will provide a picture of the region’s employment situation, so that growth and employment projections can be adjusted for 2009 as a whole. Strategies for dealing with the crisis must have jobs and income protection as their central goals. Policies are moving in that direction in Latin America and the Caribbean and, if they are effective, an even greater worsening of the situation may be avoided. Labour produces wealth, generates consumption, keeps economies functioning and is a key factor in seeking out the way to more sustainable and equitable growth once the crisis is past.