Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/ecoaaa/1804-en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Towards better social protection for more workers in Latin America: Challenges and policy considerations

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Matthias Arnold
  • Aida Caldera Sánchez
  • Paula Garda
  • Alberto González Pandiella
  • Sebastián Nieto Parra
Abstract
Informality is a long-standing structural challenge of Latin American labour markets, as almost half of people in the region live in a household that depends solely on informal employment. Informal workers are often insufficiently covered by social protection policies, for which the eligibility is often tied to formal-sector employment. The need to reform social protection systems across Latin America to make them more effective and fiscally sustainable has become more salient after the COVID pandemic. This paper argues that a basic set of social protection benefits available to all workers, whether they work in the formal or the informal sector, should and can be put in place, although it would require the ability to raise additional tax revenues. Moreover, the incentives for formal job creation would be strengthened if its principal source of financing for such basic social protection were shifted towards general tax revenues, as opposed to social security contributions, which tend to increase the cost of formal job creation. Reforming social protection systems will not be easy, but these reforms can provide the basis for both stronger and more inclusive growth in Latin America.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Matthias Arnold & Aida Caldera Sánchez & Paula Garda & Alberto González Pandiella & Sebastián Nieto Parra, 2024. "Towards better social protection for more workers in Latin America: Challenges and policy considerations," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1804, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1804-en
    DOI: 10.1787/76a04c6f-en
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/76a04c6f-en
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1787/76a04c6f-en?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour Markets; Latin America; Pensions; Poverty; Productivity; Social Protection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1804-en. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edoecfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.