Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:08:01.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two Decades of Social Investment in Latin America: Outcomes, Shortcomings and Achievements of Conditional Cash Transfers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2016

Theodoros Papadopoulos  and
Ricardo Velázquez Leyer
Theodoros Papadopoulos
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath E-mail: [email protected]
Ricardo Velázquez Leyer
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes (CCTs) have been at the core of the remarkable expansion of social protection in Latin America in the early twenty-first century. Our article reviews the origins of CCTs in the Social Investment (SI) approach to social policy design, explores their characteristics and traces their expansion in Latin America. It further questions whether CCTs designed under the influence of SI can generate long-term substantial improvements in social outcomes. Our analysis suggests that while CCTs have evidently produced a number of positive outputs they are not, on their own, enough to achieve the aim of reducing poverty. CCTs appear to be more effective in poverty alleviation when they are accompanied by – or form part of – a wider package of measures that enhance social and employment rights, integrating workers into the formal economy under better conditions. We conclude that unless the structural deficiencies that shape many of the Latin American welfare regimes are addressed, the potential of social investment policies, like CCTs, to combat poverty will remain limited.

Keywords

CCTssocial investmentpoverty reductionLatin America social policy
Type
Themed Section on Assessing the Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin American Societies in the Early Twenty-First Century
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 435 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrientos, A. (2009) ‘Labour markets and the (hyphenated) welfare regime in Latin America’, Economy and Society, 38, 1, 87–87.Google Scholar
Barrientos, A. (2011) ‘Poverty, the crisis and social policy responsed in developing countries’, in Farnsworth, K. and Irving, Z. (eds.), Social Policy in Challenging Times: Economic Crisis and Welfare Systems, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Borges Sugiyama, N. (2008) ‘Theories of policy diffusion: social sector reform in Brazil’, Comparative Political Studies, 14, 2, 193–216.Google Scholar
Borges Sugiyama, N. (2011) ‘The diffusion of conditional cash transfer programs in the Americas', Global Social Policy, 11, 2–3, 250–78.Google Scholar
Cantillon, B. (2011) ‘The paradox of the social investment state: growth, employment and poverty in the Lisbon era’, Journal of European Social Policy, 21, 5, 432–49.Google Scholar
CEPAL (2014) Transferencias de ingresos para la erradicación de la pobreza Dos décadas de experiencia en los países de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), Santiago de Chile: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe.Google Scholar
CEPAL (2015) Programas de inclusión laboral y productiva: Base de datos de programas de protección social no contributiva en América Latina y el Caribe, División de Desarrollo Social, Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe.Google Scholar
CONEVAL (2014) Medicion de la Pobreza en Mexico, Anexo Estadistico de Pobreza en Mexico, Mexico, DF: National Evaluation Council for Social Policy (CONEVAL).Google Scholar
Damian, A. (2007) ‘Los retos en materia social en Mexico a inicios del siglo XXI’, in Calva, J. L. (ed.), Agenda para el desarrollo vol. 11: Empleo, ingreso y bienestar, Mexico, DF: Miguel Angel Porrua-UNAM.Google Scholar
Deeming, C. and Smyth, P. (2015) ‘Social investment after neoliberalism: policy paradigms and political platforms’, Journal of Social Policy, 44, 2, 297–318.Google Scholar
Dion, M. (2010) Workers and Welfare: Comparative Institutional Change in Twentieth-Century Mexico, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
ECLAC (2014) Social Panorama of Latin America (2014), Santiago de Chile: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.Google Scholar
ECLAC (2015) ‘CEPALSTAT: Statistics and Indicators’, http://estadisticas.cepal.org/cepalstat/WEB_CEPALSTAT/Portada.asp?idioma=i, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.Google Scholar
Feitosa de Britto, T. (2008) ‘The emergence and popularity of conditional cash transfers in Latin America’, in Barrientos, A. and Hulme, D. (eds.), Social Protection for the Poor and the Poorest, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Filgueira, C. and Filgueira, F. (2002) ‘Models of welfare and models of capitalism: the limits of transferability’, in Huber, E. (ed.), Models of Captialism: Lessons for Latin America, Pennsylvania, USA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 127–58.Google Scholar
Fizsbein, A. and Schady, N. (2009) Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty, Washington, DC: World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, R. (2006) ‘Modelos de politica social en America Latina en el ultimo cuarto de siglo’, in Franco, R. and Lanzaro, J. (eds.), Politica y politicas publicas en los procesos de reforma de America Latina, Buenos Aires, Argentina: FLACSO, pp. 147–68.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. (1998) ‘The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Polity Press.Google Scholar
Hall, A. (2012) ‘The last shall be first: political dimensions of conditional cash transfers in Brazil’, Journal of Policy Practice, 11, 1–2, 25–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, E. and Stephens, J. (2012) Democracy and the Left: Social Policy and Inequality in Latin America, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2014) 2014 Labour Overview. Latin America and the Caribbean, Lima: International Labour Organisation.Google Scholar
Jenson, J. (2010) ‘Diffusing ideas for after neoliberalism: the social investment perspective in Europe and Latin America’, Global Social Policy, 10, 1, 59–84.Google Scholar
Kaufman, R. and Nelson, J. (eds.) (2004) Crucial Needs, Weak Incentives: Social Sector Reform, Democratization, and Globalization in Latin America, Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Lavinas, L. (2013) ‘21st century welfare’, New Left Review, 84, November–December).Google Scholar
Lavinas, L. and Simoes, A. (2015) ‘Social policy and structural heterogeneity in Latin America: the turning point of the 21st century’, in Fritz, B. and Lavinas, L. (eds.), A Moment of Equality for Latin America? Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Levy, S. (2006) Progress Against Poverty: Sustaining Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades Programme, Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.Google Scholar
Levy, S. and Rodriguez, E. (2005) Sin herencia de pobreza: el programa Progresa - Oportunidades de México, Washington, DC: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo - Planeta.Google Scholar
Lustig, N. and Lopez Calva, L. F. (eds.) (2011) La disminución de la desigualdad en la América Latina. ‘Un decenio de progreso’, Mexico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Martínez Franzoni, J. and Sánchez-Ancochea, D. (2014) ‘The double challenge of martket and social incorporation: progress and bottlenecks in Latin America’, Development Policy Review, 32, 3, 275–98.Google Scholar
Mesa-Lago, C. (2000) ‘Desarrollo social, reforma del Estado y de la seguridad social, al umbral del siglo XXI’, Serie Politicas Sociales, Santiago de Chile: CEPAL/ECLAC.Google Scholar
Morel, N., Palier, B. and Palme, J. (2012) Social investment: a paradigm in search of a new economic model and political mobilisation’, in Morel, N., Palier, B. and Palme, J. (eds.), Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 353–75.Google Scholar
Sanchez-Ancochea, D. and Mattei, L. (2011) ‘Bolsa Família, poverty and inequality: political and economic effects in the short and long run’, Global Social Policy, 11, 2–3, 299–318.Google Scholar
SEDESOL (2014) ‘DECRETO por el que se crea la Coordinación Nacional de PROSPERA Programa de Inclusión Social’, México, DF: Secretaría de Desarrollo Social.Google Scholar
Standing, G. (2011) ‘Behavioural conditionality: why the nudges must be stopped – an opinion piece’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 19, 1, 17–38.Google Scholar
World Bank (2016) World Bank Open Data [Online], Washington DC: The World Bank, available from http://data.worldbank.org/ [Accessed 19 January 2016].Google Scholar