Vital Inequalities in Urban Contexts of Argentina’s Great North: Approximations Based on Child Mortality Rate and Health Vulnerability Index (2005–2020)

Abstract

Different research has shown that social and economic inequalities have been on the rise since the 1980s - even more so as society becomes more urbanized - both in the most developed countries and emerging ones. For Latin America in general - and for Argentina in particular - inequality is one of the most critical dimensions on the process to achieving the so-called territorial equality, which would imply better living conditions for the population. Even in recent years, where a plethora of policies connected to mitigating inequality have taken place, the inherent characteristics of territorial structures, together with other phenomena (policy biases and vacuums, their form of application, in addition to different international situations, among other factors) prevented the disruption of the regional inequality circle in Argentina. We have conceived a particular tendency to analyze vital inequalities, that is, those socially constructed inequalities that offer human beings unequal life opportunities. The selected area of study is Argentina’s Great North, a territory that is already defined as a context of persistent poverty. In this territory, the urban dimension represented by the nine provincial capitals. The results warn, both under a diachronic and synchronous look, the characters both in magnitude, trend, and spatial distribution, that vital inequalities acquire in these urban settings in recent time periods.