The Slow and Reluctant Development of Social Citizenship in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter puts the region’s social protection policy models into historical, political, and social context. It distinguishes four major stages in Latin American welfare state models, clearly associated with four stages in Latin American state building: the minimalist “welfare” state of the primary export period; the contribution-based welfare state under the import substitution model; the turn to the reluctant welfare state and the introduction of the market into social affairs that characterized the Washington Consensus era; and finally, the expansionary stage of post-Washington Consensus until the mid-2010s. In the initial stages, the state role was minimal, focusing on primary education and boosting urban sanitation infrastructure. In the import substitution period, there was a strong push for modern social protection, tied firmly to the protection for formal workers. However, informal labor markets and incomplete protection of a variety of risks produced a stratified model of social security with incomplete coverage. The liberal turn led to a focus on extreme poverty along with an increased reliance on market mechanisms in healthcare, education, and pensions. As the 20th century came to an end, pressures for more inclusive social policies promoted the expansion of coverage and benefits. The return and resilience of democracy, an export-oriented external stance, and the substantial economic growth of the first two decades of the 21st century were all factors that contributed to this new and still unstable social citizenship contract.