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

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.

Aiming to keep poor Mexican families at the breadline (but no higher): The effects of minimum wage, tax, and social policy changes between 1994 and 2012

“…It has been argued elsewhere that in recent years increases in wages have had a stronger effect on poverty reduction in Latin American than the adoption of conditional cash transfers (Papadopoulos & Velázquez Leyer, ). This article further supports that argument.…”

“…Mexico represents one of the poor performers in terms of poverty and inequality reduction in Latin America in recent years (Papadopoulos & Velázquez Leyer, ). As can be observed in Figure , the three official income poverty rates stood at practically the same levels in 2012 as they did in 1994, and in both years more than half of the population lacked sufficient income to meet basic needs (CONEVAL, ; Szekely, ).…”

A Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America

“…It is also worth mentioning the more recent work by ECLAC (), Lopez‐Calva and Lustig () on inequality, Ferreira et al . () on the middle class, Levy () on social policy, Papadopoulos and Leyer () on conditional cash transfers, Marinakis () on minimum wages, and the Oxford Handbook of Latin American Economics (edited by Ocampo and Ros, ) which identifies a number of shared economic and social characteristics in the region.…”

“…Studies of this kind include the Social Panorama for Latin America annually released by ECLAC since 1991, Cardoso and Helwege (1992), the books by Attanasio and Szekely (2001), Birdsall and Garaham (2000), Lopes and Valdes (2000), and Borda and Masi (2001). 1 It is also worth mentioning the more recent work by ECLAC (2010), 2 Lopez-Calva and Lustig (2010) on inequality, Ferreira et al (2012) on the middle class, Levy (2013) on social policy, Papadopoulos and Leyer (2016) on conditional cash transfers, Marinakis (2016) on minimum wages, and the Oxford Handbook of Latin American Economics (edited by Ocampo and Ros, 2012) which identifies a number of shared economic and social characteristics in the region.…”

De prestaciones a garantías: reimaginando el Bono de Desarrollo Humano en Ecuador

“…Sin embargo, los PTMC de mayor escala de Brasil (Bolsa Familia) y México (ahora Oportunidades) marcarían el inicio de una nueva etapa de protección social en la región. Hacia el año 2000, virtualmente todos los países en la región habrían implementado un PTMC a escala nacional (Papadopoulos & Velázquez, 2016).…”