Growth, Poverty in Latin American Countries - Longterm Trends

Latin America is the region with perhaps the greatest inequalities in the distribution of welfare and wealth. Despite the fact that many of the countries in the region have achieved a relatively high average income level, ample proportions of their populations continue to live in situations of absolute deprivation, lacking the necessities of life according to any objective criteria. Economic growth in the postwar period has been significant but in many instances unstable, and has declined across the region through out the eighties. Recovery of growth in the nineties has proceeded at only moderate rates. Traditional inequalities have significantly diminished with growth only in some cases, although in all cases they widened during the recession of the eighties. This complex panorama, to which economic reforms were incorporated at different moments of the last two decades, calls for a case-by-case assessment of the probable evolution of poverty during this long and eventful period.