The Most Unequal Region on the Planet?: A Sociological Analysis of the Ideas, Evaluations and Attitudes Toward Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

Latin America and the Caribbean is known worldwide as the most unequal region on the planet. However, all the academic attention given to its levels of poverty and income distribution has not been matched by the study of perceptions of inequality, its tolerance, its legitimization, and its dismissal. Through the statistical processing of various secondary sources (Latinobarómetro, World Value Survey and International Social Survey Program), the chapter explores some of the most relevant trends in Latin America in the twenty-first century regarding the perception of economic inequality and distributive justice, subjective social class, and images of social structure: Does the Latin American population feel inequality more than the population of other regions? How heterogeneous is this perception at the national level? During the last decades the region has experienced profound transformations, reduction of inequality gaps in the different dimensions of social life, and a sharp drop in poverty-related statistics. Have structural modifications had consequences on the population’s representations? Have the parameters of tolerance on inequality been modified and have new redistributive consensuses been socially generated? Has Latin American sensitivity to this issue increased? What other judgments, diagnoses, and memories synthesize the perceptions of inequality as they appear in population surveys?