Download or read book Working to End Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean Workers Jobs and Wages written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book LAC Poverty and Labor Brief June 2015 written by Weltbank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While LAC continues its progress towards becoming a middle-class region, in 2013 poverty reduction was slower than in previous years. The bottom 40 percent of the population has also seen decelerating income growth since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Driving the lower gains in shared prosperity and poverty reduction is the region's slowing economic growth. Similarly, after more than a decade of steady decline, inequality has been stagnant since 2010 and remains high. Given the crucial role of labor earnings in poverty and inequality reduction, this report analyzes more deeply LAC's labor markets and its implications for the region's social gains going forward. It shows that the region's push to increase its human capital has yielded dividends; increases in the educational attainment of the labor force are evident across the region. Nonetheless, the substantial growth in wages observed during the last decade was not accompanied by significant changes in the labor market: agriculture and low-productivity, informal service employment continued to be key sources of income for the poor in LAC. Instead, most of the gains were seen in countries that benefitted from the commodity boom of the last decade. As the commodity boom fades and growth wanes, there is a risk that the social gains achieved in the century's first decade will erode.
Download or read book Law and Employment written by James J. Heckman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.
Download or read book Job Creation in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Carmen Pag s and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-06-19 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a decade has passed since the introduction of comprehensive macroeconomic stabilization packages and trade, fiscal, and financial market reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, growth prospects remain disappointing; labor markets show lackluster performance, with low participation rates, high and persistent informality, and, in some cases, open unemployment. Creating viable and lasting employment is vital to reduce poverty and spread prosperity in the region. The failure to create more and more productive and rewarding jobs carries substantial political, social, and economic costs. 'Job Creation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent Trends and Policy Challenges' provides a thorough examination of the labor market trends in the region in recent decades and assesses the role that labor demand and labor supply factors have played in shaping these outcomes.
Download or read book From Right to Reality written by Helena Ribe and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study highlights the interaction between social protection (SP) programs and labor markets in the Latin America region. It presents new evidence on the limited coverage of existing programs and emphasizes the challenges caused by high informality for achieving universal social protection for old age income, health, unemployment risks and anti-poverty safety nets. It identifies interaction effects between SP programs and the behavioral responses of workers, firms and social protection providers, which can further undermine efforts to expand coverage, summarizing evidence from recent work across the region. The book argues for a re-design of financing to eliminate cross subsidies between members of contributory programs and subsidies that effectively tax income from formal employment. It advocates well-targeted, tax-funded, tapered subsidies to provide incentives to the savings efforts of low-income workers, coupled with an effective safety net for the extreme poor who have no capacity to contribute to financing their own social protection arrangements. It also argues for the consolidation of programs and harmonization of benefits packages across different insurers. The book develops an overall conceptual framework and presents in-depth analysis of the main SP sectors of pensions, health, unemployment insurance and labor market programs, and safety net transfers.
Download or read book Wage Inequality in Latin America written by Julián Messina and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What caused the decline in wage inequality of the 2000s in Latin America? Looking to the future, will the current economic slowdown be regressive? Wage Inequality in Latin America: Understanding the Past to Prepare for the Future addresses these two questions by reviewing relevant literature and providing new evidence on what we know from the conceptual, empirical, and policy perspectives. The answer to the fi rst question can be broken down into several parts, although the bottom line is that the changes in wage inequality resulted from a combination of three forces: (a) education expansion and its eff ect on falling returns to skill (the supply-side story); (b) shifts in aggregate domestic demand; and (c) exchange rate appreciation from the commodity boom and the associated shift to the nontradable sector that changed interfi rm wage diff erences. Other forces had a non-negligible but secondary role in some countries, while they were not present in others. These include the rapid increase of the minimum wage and a rapid trend toward formalization of employment, which played a supporting role but only during the boom. Understanding the forces behind recent trends also helps to shed light on the second question. The analysis in this volume suggests that the economic slowdown is putting the brakes on the reduction of inequality in Latin America and will likely continue to do so—but it might not actually reverse the region’s movement toward less wage inequality.
Download or read book Labor and Economic Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, most countries in the Latin America and Caribbean Region have stabilized their economies and lowered barriers to international trade. Many of the policies aimed at reducing poverty and tackling inequality in the 1960-1980 period were well intentioned, but the region made little or no progress in improving income distribution. With the recent shift toward market orientation and openness to international trade, these countries will need a new approach to labor policy as well as different instruments for addressing income distribution goals. This report gives special attention to four areas of labor policy: 1) change from direct government intervention in wage determination and strict seniority rules to a system that rewards effort, high productivity, and good management within a framework that relies on voluntary negotiation of working conditions between workers and firms; 2) replacement of job security legislation by a more effective mechanism that protects workers when they change jobs; 3) careful design of mandatory contributions to social security and other programs in order to minimize the distortionary effect of labor taxes; and 4) redirecting of government subsidies for training and education to the demand side and targeting to those who cannot afford to pay.
Download or read book Employment in Crisis written by Joana Silva and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2021-10-08 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A region known for its volatility, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has suffered severe economic and social setbacks from crises—including the COVID-19 pandemic. These crises have taken their toll on careers, wage growth, and productivity. Employment in Crisis: The Path to Better Jobs in a Post-COVID-19 Latin America provides new evidence on the effects of crises on the region’s workers and firms and suggests several policy responses that can bolster long-term and inclusive economic growth. This report has three key findings. First, crises lead to persistent employment losses and accelerate structural changes away from the formal sector. This change occurs more through reductions in the creation of formal jobs than through job destruction. Second, some workers recover from crises, while others are permanently scarred by them. Low-skilled workers can suffer up to a decade of lower earnings caused by crises, while high-skilled workers rebound fast, exacerbating the LAC region’s high level of inequality. Formal workers suffer smaller employment and wage losses in localities with higher rates of informality. And the reduced job flows caused by crises decrease welfare, but workers in localities with more job opportunities, whether formal or informal, bounce back better. Third, crises’ cleansing effects can increase efficiency and productivity, but these effects are dampened by the LAC region’s less competitive market structure. Rather than becoming more agile and productive during economic downturns, protected sectors and firms gain market share and crowd out others, trapping valuable resources. This report proposes a three-pronged mix of policies to improve the LAC region’s responses to crises: •Create a more stable macroeconomic environment to smooth the impacts of crises, including automatic stabilizers such as unemployment insurance and short-term compensation programs; •Increase the capacity of social protection and labor programs to respond to crises and coalesce these programs into systems that complement income support with reemployment assistance and reskilling opportunities; and •Tackle structural issues, including the lack of product market competition and the spatial dimension behind poor labor market adjustment—a “good jobs and good firms†? agenda.
Download or read book Shared Prosperity and Poverty Eradication in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Louise Cord and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade Latin America and the Caribbean region has achieved important progress towards the World Bank Group's goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting income growth of the bottom 40 percent, propelled by remarkable economic growth and falling income inequality. Despite this impressive performance, social progress has not been uniform over this period, and certain countries, subregions and even socioeconomic groups participated less in the growth process. As of today, more than 75 million people still live in extreme poverty in the region (using $2.50/day/capita), half of them in Brazil and Mexico, and extreme poverty rates top 40 percent in Guatemala and reach nearly 60 percent in Haiti. This means that extreme poverty is still an important issue in both low- and middle-income countries in the region. As growth wanes and progress in reducing the still high levels of inequality in the region slows, it will be more important than ever for governments to focus policies on inclusive growth. The book includes an overview that highlights progress towards the goals of poverty eradication and shared prosperity between 2003 and 2012, unpacks recent gains at the household level using an income-based asset model, and examines some of the policy levers used to affect social outcomes in the region. It draws on 13 country studies, eight of which are featured in this volume: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The other case studies include: Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, which will be included in the web version of the book.
Download or read book Growth Employment and Poverty in Latin America written by Guillermo Cruces and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the links between economic growth, changing employment conditions, and the reduction of poverty in Latin America in the 2000s. Our analysis answers the following broad questions: Has economic growth resulted in gains in standards of living and reductions in poverty via improved labour market conditions in Latin America in the 2000s, and have these improvements halted or been reversed since the international crisis of 2008? How do the rate and character of economic growth, changes in the various employment and earnings indicators, and changes in poverty and inequality indicators relate to each other? Our contribution is an in-depth study of the multi-pronged growth-employment-poverty nexus based on a large number of labour market indicators (twelve employment and earnings indicators and four poverty and inequality indicators) for a large number of Latin American countries (sixteen of them). The book presents a positive and hopeful set of findings for the period 2000 to 2012/13. Economic growth took place and brought about improvements in almost all labour market indicators and consequent reductions in poverty rates. But not all improvements were equal in size or caused by the same things. Some macroeconomic factors were associated with changes in labour market conditions, some of them always in the welfare-improving direction and some others always in the welfare-reducing direction. Most countries in the region suffered a deterioration in at least some labour market indicators as a consequence of the international crisis of 2008, but the negative effects were reversed very quickly in most countries.
Download or read book Pending Issues in Protection Productivity Growth and Poverty Reduction written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper selectively synthesizes much of the research on Latin American and Caribbean labor markets in recent years. Several themes emerge that are particularly relevant to ongoing policy dialogues. First, labor legislation matters, but markets may be less segmented than previously thought. The impetus to voluntary informality, which appears to be a substantial fraction of the sector, implies that the design of social safety nets and labor legislation needs to take a more integrated view of the labor market, taking into account the cost-benefit analysis workers and firms make about whether to interact with formal institutions. Second, the impact of labor market institutions on productivity growth has probably been underemphasized. Draconian firing restrictions increase litigation and uncertainty surrounding worker separations, reduce turnover and job creation, and poorly protect workers. But theory and anecdotal evidence also suggest that they, and other related state or union induced rigidities, may have an even greater disincentive effect on technological adoption, which accounts for half of economic growth. Finally, institutions can affect poverty and equity, although the effects seem generally small and channels are not always clear. Overall, the present constellation of labor regulations serves workers and firms poorly and both could benefit from substantial reform.
Download or read book Poverty and Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Quentin Wodon and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2000 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the progress toward poverty reduction remains sluggish, other dimensions of social welfare in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region show signs of improvement. Adult literacy and school enrollment rates, life expectancy at birth, and the amount of access to safe water are increasing. Nutrition indicators are also improving. However, other factors demonstrate that many problems persist, especially the inequality between rich and poor. This report analyzes the evolution of poverty and inequality in the LAC region from 1986 to 1996 with projections to 1998. It reviews the policies which have been advocated or implemented to reduce poverty. The report combines the results of new empirical work using household surveys from 12 countries, short theoretical developments, and a review of the literature on issues related to poverty, inequality, and social policy in LAC. Some of the theoretical developments introduce new research techniques. Chapters three to six follow the framework proposed in the forthcoming 'World Development Report 2000-2001'. The framework identifies three essential elements for poverty reduction. Those elements include opportunities for the poor and investments in the human capital of the poor, security through social safety nets, and empowerment.
Download or read book Skills for the 21st Century in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Cristian Aedo and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report contributes to the debate about the quality of education and returns to education investment in Latin America and the Caribbean (LCR). It aims to improve our understanding of the links from investment in education and training to labor market outcomes and to provide a basis for policy choices that will strengthen future outcomes. The report is organized in four main chapters. Chapter 2 documents the recent downturn in education earnings premia using standard 'mincerian' regressions based on household survey data. Chapter 3 explores the underlying supply-side and demand-side drivers of the trends in premia. It documents the recent expansion of education coverage in LCR, benchmarks it against other regions, and presents an in-depth analysis of the relative importance of shifts in the supply and demand for skills in generating declining earnings premia. Using a methodological approach first developed by Katz and Murphy, it concludes that demand-side changes appear to be the critical factor. It also analyzes the role of institutional factors, finding that minimum wages also have likely played an important role in the compression of labor earnings. Chapter 4 focuses on trends in student achievement and the cost-effectiveness of secondary education. It analyzes trends data from the OECDs PISA survey of 15-year-old children in secondary education which covered nine LCR countries in 2009. It shows that achievement is improving slowly, but remains well behind the OECD. It presents benchmarking evidence suggesting that LCR may be both under-resourcing secondary education and also getting poor returns per dollar invested -- a classic low-quality equilibrium. Chapter 5 presents evidence on the fit between the skill set of LCR workers and the needs of the economy, applying an approach first developed by Levy and Murnane in the U.S.A. Analysis of the industrial composition of employment in four countries suggests that LCR is lagging in those industries that require relatively sophisticated 'new economy' skills in the U.S.A. Further evidence that cutting-edge firms in LCR might be facing skill constraints comes from the hiring lags registered in enterprise surveys.
Download or read book Social Programmes Poverty Eradication and Labour Inclusion written by Laís Wendel Abramo and published by UN. This book was released on 2019 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diverse social programmes --including conditional cash transfer programmes, labour and production inclusion programmes and social pensions--are being implemented in Latin American and Caribbean countries with the aim of ending poverty and reducing inequalities throughout the life cycle. This book offers an up-to-date analysis of these programmes and the way they relate to labour inclusion, and analyses ongoing debates regarding the possible incentives and disincentives they create in terms of the labour supply, formalization and child labour among the target population. Considering that poverty is a structural problem of highly unequal societies, the thesis that poverty is due to a lack of effort on the part of the poor is argued to be an expression of the strong prejudice against those living in poverty, the great majority of whom work or are actively seeking employment, but are hampered by the large decent work deficits existing in the region. From an integrated and rights-based perspective, public policies should simultaneously address the twofold challenge of social and labour inclusion in order to achieve basic thresholds of well-being by ensuring income, universal access to good-quality social services and opportunities for decent work.
Download or read book Achieving Effective Social Protection for All in Latin America and the Caribbean written by Helena Ribe and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study highlights the interaction between social protection programs and labor markets in the Latin America region. It presents new evidence on the limited coverage of existing programs and emphasizes the challenges caused by high informality for achieving universal social protection for old age income, for health, for unemployment risks and for anti poverty safety nets. It identifies interaction effects between SP programs and the behavioral responses of workers, firms and social protection providers, which can further undermine efforts to expand coverage, summarizing evidence from recent work across the region. It argues for a re-design of financing to eliminate cross subsidies between members of contributory programs and subsidies that effectively tax income from formal employment. Instead, it advocates well-targeted, tax-funded tapered subsidies to provide incentives to the savings efforts of low income workers, coupled with an effective safety net for the extreme poor who have no capacity to contribute to financing their own social protection arrangements. It also argues for the consolidation of programs and harmonization of benefits packages across different insurers. The book develops an overall conceptual framework and presents in-depth analysis of the main SP sectors of pensions, health, unemployment insurance and safety net transfers.
Download or read book Left Behind written by Renos Vakis and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One out of every five Latin Americans or around 130 million people have never known anything but poverty, subsisting on less than US$4-a-day throughout their lives. These are the region ́s chronically poor, who have remained so despite unprecedented inroads against poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean since the turn of the century. Left Behind: Chronic Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean takes a closer look at the region’s entrenched poor, who and where they are, and how existing policies need to change in order to effectively assist them. The book shows significant variations of rates of chronic poverty both across and within countries. Within a single country, some regions show incidence rates up to eight times higher than the lowest. Despite the higher rates of chronic poverty in rural areas, chronic poverty is as much an urban as a rural issue. In fact, considering absolute numbers, urban areas in many countries, including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, have more chronic poor than rural areas. Undoubtedly the region has come a long way during the decade in terms of poverty reduction, guided by a mix of sustained growth and increased levels in amounts and quality of public spending and programs targeted directly or indirectly to the chronic poor. While improving endowments and the context where the chronic poor live is a necessary condition going forward, the decade’s experience suggests that it may not be enough to reach the chronic poor. The book posits that refinements to the existing policy toolkit †“ as opposed to more programs †“ may come a long way in helping the remaining poor. These refinements include intensifying efforts to improve coordination between different social and economic programs, which can boost the income generation process and deal with the intergenerational transmission of chronic poverty by investing in early childhood development. Equally important though, there is an urgent need to adapt programs to directly address the psychological toll of chronic poverty on people’s mindset and aspirations, which currently undermines the effectiveness of the existing policy efforts.
Download or read book Better Pensions Better Jobs written by Mariano Bosch and published by Inter-American Development Bank. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has reduced its inequality and poverty, and is looking towards the future with greater optimism than in the past. As the region grows, new problems appear that economic policymakers must address. How to provide adequate pensions for the elderly is one such problem. This book offers an analysis of pension systems from the perspective of the functioning of the regions labor markets. It clarifies why, more than half a century after pension systems were created, only a minority of workers in the region save for their pension in the contributory systems through payroll taxes. The study points out that the problem lies not only in the lack of coverage, but also in the low level of benefits, even of contributory pensions. It argues that to design public policies for pensions, it is essential to understand the complex web of interactions between employers and workers that take place in the labor market.
