Objective: To apply the Political Economy of Aging approach to the study of the economic (in)security of the elderly in Latin America and the Caribbean. This approach studies the role of the State in the reproduction, attenuation or accentuation of inequities that affect the elderly population. Methods: Political economy indicators were applied such as a type of welfare regime, articulation of social policy based on assistance and social security, coverage, contributory and non-contributory pension systems to a sample of twenty countries of the region (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). Results: The region presents a great heterogeneity in the type of State and welfare regime and its consequent effect on the economic security of the elderly. However, lack of protection exercised by the contributory systems predominates, which causes the need for non-contributory systems.
The Political Economy of Aging is one of the aspects of major relevance in current Gerontology [
In order to have a full view of the economic security of the older persons, it is necessary to complement the perspective of the Political Economy of Aging, which studies the structure at macro level, with middle and micro dimensions which influence the socioeconomic status of the older person. The Mexican and Latin American Schools have been very prolific in classifying the types of transfers according to their source, the form, formal/informal, direction, amongst other taxonomic criteria [
Some of its premises are the following: the core of gerontological investigation swings from the individual’s capacity to adapt to old age to the social processes which determine distribution of resources [
The State organizes relations of class, gender and race/ethnic group by means of the Welfare State or other forms of social State whose policies are the result of social struggles (between the State, capital resources and work) and the dominant relations of power of a certain historic moment generated by the contradictions of capital and the crisis they create [
A State will be more social when “it recognises the right of its least favoured citizens to act, according to the law, against an unequal State of which the State itself is a part [
The type of Social State, the type of Welfare State [
Essentially, the Political Economy of Aging has been pioneer in responding to the question of what the role of the State is in the case of the elderly in general, and particularly in relation to their socioeconomic situation [
From a neoweberian point of view in relation to class, as one of the dimensions that influences status, the Political Economy of Aging emphasizes the role played by the social class prior to retirement in determining the situation in old age, as well as the role continued to be performed in relation to the class of the older people who continue in the work force [
The social class prior to retirement is determinant in relation to the situation to be lived in old age [
Gender generates inequalities in old age in four different ways, as pointed out by Carroll L. Estes [
With respect to the first point, access to work is conditioned by gender in various ways. On the one hand, women have more difficulty in acquiring high level jobs due to the so called “glass ceiling [
The second point emerges from the concept that the value of work relegates care and other forms of “productive” activity to second place. The line of welfare feminism [
The third point has to do with certain presumptions on the expected life cycle, which give way to greater or better social benefits in old age for the sectors of the population who fulfil this model, and penalize those who don’t. The main idea is that the principal receiver of social benefits is a working man of the second sector who fulfils the role of sole provider of family income, in the company of a woman dedicated to the home, who has left work once she married in order to dedicate her time to the family, firstly to bringing up children and later to caring for the elderly. The ideal life model is that of continued work as of leaving school up until retirement. However, the real beneficiaries of true fulfilment of this model are the men providers, as the woman who becomes a widow―and has followed this model―generally receives a lower pension (as second or dependent beneficiary) than the one received by the man (principal beneficiary). With respect to the women who are not in this “traditional” model and whose numbers are increasing (divorced, single, separated), their situation is even less favourable [
The fourth way, in which the situation of the older woman differs, is in her greater dependence to State assistance. The fact that women live longer than men, means that they rely on State benefits or services, in terms of health and income, for a longer period of time. In this sense, it must be mentioned that women make up the greater part of the older population, a phenomenon that Angela O’Rand and the National Academy on Aging referred to in 1994 as “the feminization of aging” and which takes place in every country of the world [
It is important to emphasize that gender is added to class in the generation and multiplication of inequities and, it is for this reason, that these two aspects should be jointly studied.
Two aspects must be examined before addressing this subject. Firstly, and with the aim of not making mistakes in generalizations, the degree of ethnic/cultural and racial differences of the countries must be measured, in the case that such differences exist. Secondly, the aspect [
Having clarified these points, it must be seen that older persons belonging to these minority groups are over represented in lower income groups.
Race/ethnic group―in multiracial and/or multiethnic societies―influences the socioeconomic situation of the older person, for similar reasons―in some aspects―as in the first point mentioned above on the aspect of gender, that is, the hard fact that the social benefits or pensions received in old age are conditioned by paid work carried out during the productive age. The latter is determined by the racial discrimination present in work opportunities throughout the life cycle. Similarly, in relation to race/ethnic group, the fourth point mentioned above on the focus on gender must be considered in the following way: the economic and social cumulative disadvantage which goes building up throughout the life cycle results in a greater exclusion from social security for the older persons belonging to minority groups [
It is important to establish the need of jointly studying in a multidimensional fashion, the variables of age, class, gender and race/ethnic group. The result is not the sum of these together, sometimes it is exponential and often produces experiences and consequences with qualitative and quantitative differences [
The economic status of older persons is composed―at least―by the following dimensions: class, gender, race/ethnic group and status of citizenship. The latter is determined by the type of Social State, Welfare State or, in the case of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Welfare Regime. In this sense, the status of citizenship is barely one component which attenuates to a greater or lesser extent, the impact of the other components.
In the tentative “application” of the Political Economy of Aging Theory to the case of Latin America and the Caribbean region with respect to the inequities of the pension systems for older persons according to class, gender and race/ethnic group, it is necessary to incorporate two new aspects that have not been present in the original formulation of the approach: type of locality and corporatism.
Type of locality (rural/urban) bears considerable influence in the possibilities of a citizen to have access to permanent formal employment and, consequently, to the social benefits and services in old age. The low proportion of rural workers who are right holders in relation to urban right holders is a generalized phenomenon in the countries of the region.
Corporatism is a dimension which refers to the special relationship between the State and certain citizens, or said more correctly, between the State and state corporations integrated by certain citizens. This is an aspect in which the State reproduces and maximizes inequities.
The region is characterized by great inequalities in the social security systems in relation to class so that the citizens who are amongst the lower income quintiles are practically excluded (
An outright lack of coverage can be seen (below 8 per cent) in the lower quintiles in the great majority of countries with the exception of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, which are the countries with greater lower quintiles coverage. In this sense, Chile represents an intermediate case and covers approximately 38 per cent of older persons in the first quintile, followed by Costa Rica and Venezuela.
The gender perspective was ignored to a greater or lesser extent by social security systems, depending on the country. Similarly, it did not take into account the generations whose productive years developed prior to the time when social benefits became obligatory, so that these continued to be excluded [
This lesser participation in the job market contrasts with their greater participa-
tion in the informal sector (
The greatest gender inequity exists in El Salvador and The Dominican Republic where male coverage is in a ratio of 3 to 1 with that of women; followed by Mexico where male coverage is twice that of women. In the case of Argentina, older women enjoy greater coverage than older men and both are high.
Social security institutions of the countries of the region supported the processes of industrialization and urbanization―by means of coverage for the salaried urban formal worker―and marginalized rural development―through lack of coverage of the rural workers.
In general terms, in the majority of the countries of Latin America the pension systems are mainly concentrated in urban areas [
In countries with low social security coverage, protection is mainly concentrated in urban areas. The pension systems exclude workers in the informal sector as well as self-employed workers, tradesmen and agricultural workers [
It is advisable also to consider the race/ethnic group dimension as, in this case, there is often a double condition of indigenous or Afro descendant and rural element. The indigenous population as well as the Afro descendants concentrate in areas with low urban development, in other words, very rural areas (However, the indigenous population is progressively increasing in urban areas) [
It could be deducted that the inequity derived from the dimension of type of locality is summed to the dimension of race/ethnic group as it is no coincidence that the areas inhabited by the indigenous and Afro descendant populations are the most unprotected and register the greater marginalization.
Some of the dimensions of exclusion are: legal exclusion, since they are not taken into account by legal dispositions; economic exclusion: they do not contribute to a fund; exclusion by stigma: “they are peasants”; and social exclusion: “there is no custom” [
The greater the ethnic heterogeneity, the less is the coverage [
In Guillermo Perry’s words:
“All seems to indicate that in Latin America the more heterogeneous societies have tolerated [have propitiated] greater levels of social exclusion. Recent studies point out, in fact, that the racial or ethnic differences are amongst the most significant factors of social exclusion, understood as unequal access to a series of services and opportunities guaranteed by the rights to education, health, employment, political participation and civil rights ( [
There are no studies giving evidence of a different rate of coverage with respect to the creole minority (
The rural/urban dimension shows even greater inequities than the gender dimension. Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador and The Dominican Republic show a ratio of at least 1 to 3. Brazil seems to have been the most successful case, having reached greater coverage in the rural sector even over the urban sector.
Although it is not present in the formulation of the original approach, corpora- tism is an essential State-citizen relation in the sample countries (
The principal observation to be made in relation to graph No. 4 is the very
high coverage enjoyed by older persons who have worked in the public sector, which surpasses 80 per cent in all countries. The countries with the highest coverage in the private sector are Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay.
Economic status of older persons is conditioned by the aforementioned dimensions as well as by the type of Welfare Regime. The Latin American Welfare Regimes, which were established during the period between the twenties and sixties of the past century have been reformed modifying the type of welfare regime, although coverage has not increased as a result of these reforms. On the other hand, it is necessary to take into account the existence or not of non-contributory pensions and the extent of these as they constitute a palliative to the lack of coverage of the contributory systems (
In so far as the Latin American welfare regimes are concerned, Carlos Barba [
“They are comparatively characterized as they have States that are very active in terms of social aspects, having promoted a gradual and universalizing expansion of social rights and they articulated social protection systems with the formal labour market and unions ( [
For their part, the dual regimes (Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) and the exclusive ones (Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicara- gua, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic) are noted for:
“A decline of one and two steps respectively, in the indicators considered [referring to life expectancy at birth, infant mortality, illiteracy and other indexes] (…), as well as in levels of social spending, social security coverage, education and preventive health services (…). And also for a gradual increase in ethno cultural heterogeneity, the regressive nature of social protection systems and the degree of informality in labour markets ( [
Juliana Martínez-Franzoni [
1Self elaborated table based on: Barba, C. (2003) El nuevo paradigma de bienestar residual y deslocalizado. Reforma de los regímenes de bienestar en la OECD, América Latina y México (phdthesis), University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara (Mexico); United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)/HelpAge Inter- national HAI (2012)Aging in theTwenty-First Century: A Celebration and A Challenge, UNFPA/HAI, New York; Martínez-Franzoni, J. (2007)Regímenes de bienestar en América Latina,Carolina Foundation, Madrid (Spain); Mesa-Lago, C. (1994)Changing Social Security in Latin America: Towardsalleviatingthecosts of economicreform, LyenneRienner Publisher, London; Mesa-Lago, C. (2009)Efectos de la crisis global sobre la seguridad social de salud y pensiones en América Latina y el Caribe y recomendaciones de políticas,EconomicCommissionforLatin America and theCaribbean,Santiago de Chile; Rofman, R. and Oliveri, M. L. (2012) La cobertura de los sistemas previsionales en América Latina: conceptos e indicadores, Serie de documentos de trabajo sobre políticas sociales, núm. 7, Banco Mundial, Buenos Aires; Rossel, C. (2012) Protección social y pobreza rural en América Latina, Food and AgricultureOrganization of theUnited Nations (FAO), Santiago de Chile. 2Brazil established universal coverage for elderly women rural workers, reduced the age of retirement by five years in relation to those of urban workers, a minimum retirement was established for rural workers equivalent to the minimum salary.
ternational organizations play a greater role. Similarly, there are a great proportion of families with scarce resources that contribute with unpaid community work for their own services in areas where it could be expected that these should be the responsibility of local or central governments, such as the construction of schools or even its administration.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago [
The new classification of the same author published in 2009 takes into account multiple indicators of the first mid-decade of this century in terms of health and economic security in old age. According to the figures displayed by the different countries in the various indicators, three conglomerates may be identified. The regimes offering the greater coverage belong to the first group (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Uruguay); the second group comprises those with intermediate figures (Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela); and the third group includes those regimes offering the lower coverage (Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador and The Dominican Republic).
It is very clear from the light of Figures 1-4 and of
If one compares which countries show most similar values in coverage of the quintiles of greater and lesser incomes, of men and women, of rural and urban localities, of the public and private sector, it is evident that Argentina stands out for the least inequity both in terms of class and gender dimensions; Chile in relation to class, gender, type of locality and corporatism; and Uruguay in relation to class, gender and type of locality. Contrary to these countries whose welfare regimes are classified as universalistic, Honduras and Paraguay display very similar values both for men and women but in the sense of the lower coverage of the two.
In most developed countries pension systems privatization has been justified by the increase in life expectancy, the rapid change in demographic structures, and the lack of prevision and financial crisis. In addition to these arguments, in some countries of Latin America and the Caribbean the following have been put forth: the deviation of resources to other benefits of Social Security, the use of resources for ends foreign to the system, the inadequate administration, corrup- tion and concession of high benefits to special groups who contributed in a minimum fashion or not at all [
The introduction of the neoliberal method in terms of pensions has not been homogenous in the region. Additionally, the main deficiency of the contributive systems: the lack of coverage has not been corrected by the reforms. The countries that, according to all taxonomic criteria, are at the first level of coverage have not implemented substitute systems. Defined benefits system (pay as you go) is substituted for the defined contributions system [
The wave of privatization arrives when many developing countries have not yet reached a minimum status of social citizenship, this translated into the language of the economic security of older persons means that great proportions of this age group still remain excluded.
An indicator which completes the picture referring to the role played by the State in the economic security of older persons is the existence or not of non- contributory pensions, which are relatively generalized in the region. These pensions are not derived from contributions to social security by work performed in the formal sector, and consequently compensate the inequities related to the dimensions of the stratification which hinder access to formal work and, in this way, to the system of contributory pensions.
Amongst their favourable points, they guarantee almost total coverage for the population with no resources [
In general terms, the welfare regimes of the region accentuate inequality and marginalize broad sectors of the population of older persons (prior to and following from the reforms), proving the basic premise of the Political Economy of Aging, according to which older persons are not always poorer than other age groups of the population―as other mechanisms of the private spheres intervene, such as savings, transfers from their descendants, amongst others―but in so far as transfers from the State are concerned, of actions and systems exercised and implemented respectively by the State, these reproduce and even accentuate the inequities derived from the stratification dimensions.
The region is characterized by the heterogeneity of the welfare regimes and the reach of the privatizing reforms, and by the relative homogeneity in the implementation of different types of non-contributory pensions of varying degrees of coverage. Exclusion is more acute according to the dimensions of class, gender and type of locality. In this sense, the worst scenario in terms of economic security provided by the State is expected by lower class older women living in rural areas and/or belonging to an ethnic minority. The best scenario can be expected by urban older men who worked as civil servant or were employed by a state corporation.
The greater universality of the welfare regime, the less inequality are generated by the stratification dimensions; the more exclusive the regime is, the greater the incidence of the mentioned dimensions in the generation of inequities is.
The tentative application of the Political Economy of Aging in the region shows, primarily, potential for the study of older persons due to the characteristics of these States and societies: firstly, the high degree of stratification and the deficit of citizenship present in various countries. Secondly, the role played by the exclusive welfare regimes (prior to and after the reforms) in the generation and perpetuation of said stratification deserves the study of the dynamics and established mechanisms that provoke, intensify and prolong the inequities. Thirdly, the explicit use made by this approach of the dimensions of class, gender, race/ethnic group is essential for Latin America and the Caribbean, adding those of type of locality and corporatism. Finally, the economic status of the older person derived from formal contributive transfers proceeding from the State is conditioned according to class, gender, race/ethnic group, type of locality, corporatism and the type of welfare regime.
A more in depth analysis of each country remains pending taking into account the different categories in which they lie according to each author, as well as taxonomic criteria particularly for those countries that are not always at the same level according to different authors. Thus, countries such as Brazil and Panama merit a more in depth study. On the other hand, it is particularly necessary to elaborate to a greater extent on cases of countries such as Costa Rica and Cuba that, in spite of late establishment of their social security systems, achieved broad coverage. In this same line, Panama is a relevant case in that it is the only country of the group that created their systems in the forties and fifties (group conformed by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela) that has achieved insertion into the first group according to the classification of Mesa-Lago (2009) according to data of the first decade of the twenty first century.
There would also remain pending a more thorough analysis of the conceptual differentiation, as well as in terms of public policy of social assistance and social security. These concepts perceive social assistance as a less desirable branch of greater stigma for the population benefiting from it as opposed to social security, which is considered as a justiciable right to be demanded from the State, not subject to electoral changes. However, in the region the importance of social assistance is so significant in terms of coverage, geographic extension and decades of performance that it would perhaps be worth questioning this outright separation. Particularly in the case of the economic security of older persons, non- contributory pensions constitute a social assistance policy that could be situated on the borderline between social assistance and social security.
Due to the fact that the reforms have not progressed in the direction of greater coverage, it would be pertinent to propose non-contributory pensions―either means tested or universal―as the most viable way of achieving the necessary broadening of coverage and attenuation of the inequities resulting from the dimensions of stratification (class, gender, race/ethnic group and type of locality) that the social security contributory systems have generated in a considerable proportion of the countries of the region.
Diaz-Tendero, A. (2017) Political Economy of Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean: Economic (In)- Security of Older Persons in the Twenty- First Century. Open Journal of Social Sci- ences, 5, 83-100. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2017.58007