The percentage of the Latin American population in poverty in 2023 was 27.3%, a figure that represents a decrease of 1.5 percentage points compared to the previous year and more than 5 percentage points compared to that registered in 2020. the most critical year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also the lowest figure since comparable records have been available. Meanwhile, the extreme poverty rate reached 10.6% of the region’s population, a figure lower than that of 2022 by 0.5 percentage points, but above the levels of 2014. In total, 172 million people lived in poverty in 2023, of which 66 million were in extreme poverty, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported today.
The report Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2024: challenges of non-contributory social protection to advance towards inclusive social developmentpresented by the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, indicates that poverty continues to affect women more than men of working age and that the percentage of girls, boys and adolescents in poverty is considerably higher higher than that of other age groups. Poverty is also higher in rural areas (39.1%) than in urban areas (24.6%).
The decrease in regional poverty in 2023 is explained by more than 80% of what happened in Brazil, a country where one third of the population of Latin America lives and in which non-contributory transfers were decisive. If the population in poverty had not fallen in Brazil, the regional average in 2023 would have been 28.4%, just 0.4 percentage points less than the previous year, and the incidence of extreme poverty would have remained unchanged, at 11.1%, the report says.
ECLAC also points out that, between 2022 and 2023, there were no significant variations in the levels of income inequality in the region, remaining persistently high. Between 2014 and 2023, the Gini index experienced a slight reduction of 4%, falling just from 0.471 to 0.452.
The distribution of wealth is significantly more unequal than that of income, according to estimates included in the report that integrate different sources of information (financial and non-financial assets) of the Latin American population. Around 2021, the 10% of the highest-income people concentrated 66% of total wealth and the richest 1% concentrated 33%.
He Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2024 It also warns that high levels of lack of social protection persist in the region. In 2022, 1 in 4 households (23.5%) lacked access to social protection, both contributory and non-contributory, in 14 Latin American countries. This proportion rose to 1 in 3 households (36.5%) in the lowest income quintile and in rural areas (29%).
Non-contributory social protection, ECLAC assures, is essential in households in the first quintile of the lowest income, given that 1 in 2 of these households accesses social protection through this means. This means that monetary or in-kind transfer policies (such as school feeding) and labor inclusion programs are key to linking people with social services and advancing the eradication of poverty and reducing inequality.
In 2022, 27.1% of people in Latin America resided in households receiving conditional transfer programs. Despite its positive impacts, in 14 countries studied its amounts did not cover the per capita income deficit of households to reach the poverty line.
The report confirms that non-contributory pension systems (SPNC) play a central role in reducing poverty in old age. In the last 20 years, SPNC coverage among people aged 65 and over increased more than 27 percentage points and during that period poverty in this same population was reduced by 14.3 percentage points.
“The strengthening of social protection systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly non-contributory social protection, is a strategic space for the adoption of an integrated approach that can have significant impacts on the reduction of poverty, the various causes of inequality and low levels of social cohesion in Latin America and the Caribbean, and, therefore, in the achievement of inclusive social development,” remarked the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
“Facing the development crisis in the region requires moving towards universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems. To this end, it is urgent to strengthen social institutions with technical, operational, political and prospective capabilities (TOPP),” summarized the highest representative of ECLAC, emphasizing the opportunity presented by the Second World Summit on Social Development in 2025 to face these challenges. .
According to the report, in 2023, social spending reached 11.5% of GDP in Latin America, a level very similar to the 11.4% of GDP in 2022.
In Latin America, public social spending remains the main component of total public spending (53.3% on average in 2023). In the Caribbean, the share of social spending in total spending fell to 41.3% in 2023, which further widened the existing gap with Latin American countries.
According to ECLAC, to advance the eradication of poverty, it is necessary to establish an investment standard for non-contributory social protection of between 1.5% and 2.5% of GDP or between 5% and 10% of total public spending. On average, the Ministries of Social Development of 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean spent 0.8% of GDP or 3% of total public spending on non-contributory social protection in 2022.
Finally, the 2024 edition of the Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean includes a chapter on social protection in the face of the care crisis and the aging of the population, a scenario that demands policies with a gender, intersectional, and rights-based approach. In the next 25 years, the population of people aged 65 and over will double (from 9.9% to 18.9%), reaching 138 million people in 2050.
“The sexual division of labor and the current social organization of care create gender gaps that are expressed throughout the life cycle and in the obstacles that women face to labor inclusion and social protection,” says ECLAC. In this way, in 2022, only a little more than half of the women in Latin America and the Caribbean were linked to the labor market (53.5%) and, among women who were outside the labor force in the region , 56.3% reported devoting themselves exclusively to unpaid domestic and care work (compared to 7.3% of men).
Women aged 65 and over have higher levels of poverty than men despite receiving pensions (both contributory and non-contributory) and 70.3% of women who do not receive any type of pension receive their own income below the line of poverty. The same occurs with the 42.6% of women who do receive a non-contributory pension.
Add Comment