Social Panorama of Latin America 2006

In the last four years (2003-2006), Latin America has turned in its best performance in 25 years in economic and social terms. Progress with poverty reduction, falling unemployment, improving income distribution in several countries and a strong upswing in numbers of jobs are the main factors underlying the positive trend in a number of the region’s countries. The first two chapters of Social Panorama of Latin America 2006 look at the way the main social indicators have behaved in the last few years. These indicators track the evolution of poverty and extreme poverty, inequality in income distribution and changes in the main labour market indicators. The analysis focuses in particular on the performance of urban waged employment during these years of economic upswing and expansion. The following two chapters address matters that, for different reasons, have come to figure prominently on government agendas. The chapter on indigenous peoples adopts a rights-based perspective to examine the new realities of indigenous peoples’ lives, their heterogeneity and, in particular, the new obligations of twenty-first century democracies in this respect. The chapter on changes in family structure in Latin America looks at new public policy issues raised by the increasing variety in family types and outlines ways in which governments are responding to these new situations. Social Panorama of Latin America 2006 uses the most recent estimates of the magnitude of poverty conducted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). According to these estimates, in 2005, 39.8% of the region’s population, or 209 million people, were poor and 15.4%, or 81 million, were extremely poor or indigent. The first chapter also gives poverty projections for 2006, according to which the numbers of poor and indigent will decline again, to 205 million and 79 million, respectively.