Publication: Social Assistance and Labor Market Programs in Latin America : Methodology and Key Findings from the Social Protection Database
Date
2014-06
ISSN
Published
2014-06
Author(s)
Cerutti, Paula
Fruttero, Anna
Kostenbaum, Silvana
Oliveri, Maria Laura
Rodriguez-Alas, Claudia
Abstract
How much do countries spend on social
protection? Do social protection programs cover all poor
people? And, how well are they targeted? It is notoriously
hard to find comprehensive cross-country data on social
protection programs which can help answer such questions and
allow to benchmark social protection systems. The World
Bank s Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Social Protection
Database attempts to fill these knowledge gaps by collecting
and systematizing data on social protection programs from
both administrative sources and household surveys. The data
assembled provides a powerful tool to study trends and
analyze program performance as well as benchmark countries
social protection systems. We found both expected and
unexpected trends in spending on social protection and
coverage of social protection programs across countries.
Between 2000 and 2010 expenditure on social assistance
nearly tripled. At a program level, conditional cash
transfer programs ceased to dominate social assistance
spending, with the exception of Mexico, and have come second
to social pension spending in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile.
Labor market programs remain small and fragmented, but show
much more counter-cyclical patterns.
Citation
“Cerutti, Paula; Fruttero, Anna; Grosh, Margaret; Kostenbaum, Silvana; Oliveri, Maria Laura; Rodriguez-Alas, Claudia; Strokova, Victoria. 2014. Social Assistance and Labor Market Programs in Latin America : Methodology and Key Findings from the Social Protection Database. Social Protection and Labor Discussion Paper;No. 1401. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18938 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”