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The Reduction of Inequality in Latin America during 2000–2010: A Path to Development?
Abstract
After implementation of the structural adjustment model in the region since the 1990s, we see that the benefits to economic growth and social equality were mediocre, even if there was a recovery cycle between 2004 and 2008, although Latin America presents a slight flexibility in inequality with positive trends in this period. There is, today, more centralization with regard to the social question, because Latin America does not present a shift of its workforce from less productive to more efficient activities. Therefore, this article is concerned with analyzing the impact of social policies in the last decade, as compared to the change in the economic structure. This article shows that for ECLA vision authors, the transformation of the productive structure is important to development. Although the region showed improvement with regard to inequality, poverty levels and other changes, an economic structure that is more dynamic and closer to the international technological border has not yet been achieved.
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Notes
In the 1950s, economists of the CEPAL perspective warned against this feature and created the underdevelopment concept, to refer to the specific way in which the region absorbs technical progress and distributes income.
Sachs and Warner (1997) confirm that the countries with most natural resources exports grew slowly in the last 20 years. Thus, a negative relation is established between natural resource-intensive product exports and economic growth.
Development policies should have, among their outlines, measures aimed at strengthening the productive process, focusing on improving insertion to the labor market.
As to development theories, there is debate on market industrialized economies and the possibility of improvement for post-industrial and service economies. In this perspective, economies would begin from a subsistence traditional society condition, going through a growing industrialization and productive and social differentiation phase, to a consolidation of a society supplemented by the secondary and third sectors. In the case of Latin America, we see that such supplementary nature is questioned to the extent that the modern sector becomes less dynamic.
This phenomenon, which takes place in the peripheries of capitalism, was referred to as “structural heterogeneity” by Anibal Pinto.