The Generosity of Welfare Regimes in Latin America: A new typology

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

Social protections have become increasingly important for citizens as countries in the Global South have undertaken market reforms, faced economic crises, and experienced changing labor conditions towards increasingly informal and vulnerable work. Previous studies of social policy in Latin America have focused on social insurance expenditures to gauge states’ commitment to citizen welfare. The recent development of social assistance across the region has been rapid and uneven, calling for more nuanced and comprehensive measures of social protection. This paper presents a new dataset on systems of social protection based on a multidimensional conceptualization of welfare generosity and generates a new typology that change the traditional view of welfare provision in the region. The typology yields four categories of social protection: Inclusive, Compensatory, Restrictive and Exclusionary. What emerges from the exercise is that income level or social expenditures alone do not determine the adequacy of social policy regimes. Relatively high-income countries with similar expenditure profiles have differently configured regimes when it comes to the level of generosity and inclusiveness of social policies. At the other end of the spectrum, low-income countries with relatively disadvantageous expenditure profiles have developed generous and comprehensive social policy regimes. Countries at different levels of economic and policy development are capable of addressing poverty and inequality given a favorable political context.

Author

• Gabriela Ramalho Tafoya, University of Connecticut