Summary: Este documento, elaborado por el Presidente de CIVICUS, Kumi Naidoo, habla sobre la ciudadanía participativa entendida como un medio para la mejora de las relaciones entre el Estado y sus ciudadanos, y para la construcción de nuevas avenidas para la definición de la relaciones entre los más y menos privilegiados.

Region: International

Type: Policy Briefs
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: In this Working Paper Marcelo Medeiros, Rafael Osorio and Joana Costa analyze inequalities in paid and unpaid work-time among Bolivian urban adults using time use data from a 2001 household survey. They find very high levels of within-group inequality in the distributions of paid and unpaid work-time for both men and women. They show that gender is an important variable to explain how much paid and unpaid work is done by individuals, but not so important to explain why some people have a higher total workload than others.

Region: Latin America

Type: Papers
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: Monitoring and evaluation of policy research

Summary: Is All Socioeconomic Inequality among Racial Groups in Brazil Caused by Racial Discrimination? – Working Paper # 43 We are pleased to announce the publication of IPC Working Paper #43, “Is All Socioeconomic Inequality among Racial Groups in Brazil Caused by Racial Discrimination?” The author, Rafael Guerreiro Osorio, an IPC researcher, presents his extensive research on the controversial issue of whether current racial discrimination remains the decisive determinant of the notable and persistent inequalities in socioeconomic conditions between Whites and Blacks in Brazil. In making such an evaluation, he also investigates the importance of other factors, such as region of residence, parental education and household income. His innovative research approach includes following until 2005 the life cycle of an age cohort of Brazilians born during 1973-1977. Among his findings is the discovery that while this cohort, including the Blacks within it, progressively improves its social position vis-à-vis the whole Brazilian population, the Blacks within the cohort remain in the same relative position with regard to the Whites in the cohort as all Blacks do with regard to all Whites in the population at large. Thus, this finding suggests that there has been little evidence of upward social mobility of Blacks in Brazil during the last three decades. Available online at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper43.pdf For a related IPC publication, see One Pager #27, “Has There Been Any Mobility for Non-Whites in Brazil?” Directory of Research Centres We invite you to visit the recently launched website for the IPC’s Directory of Research Centres, which currently covers 540 institutions doing research on poverty, inequality and development in 27 countries in Latin America and 200 institutions in 38 sub-Saharan African countries. This directory is an effort to strengthen links among research centres in developing countries and foster South-South Cooperation on poverty research and training. · Available at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/site/CentreSearch.do Other IPC publications at: http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/ipcpublications.htm

Region: Latin America

Type: Papers
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: Monitoring and evaluation of policy research

Summary: Siempre ha sido difícil medir sistemáticamente la desigualdad de oportunidades en América Latina y en otras regiones. Han faltado las herramientas metodológicas para monitorear la inequidad, haciendo imposible el diseño, la implementación y la evaluación de políticas públicas que se centren en el desarrollo de oportunidades. De este modo, mientras los ciudadanos latinoamericanos sienten el campo de juego desigual en el que se encuentran, sus líderes no son capaces de hacer algo al respecto.

Region: Latin America

Type: Books
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: Los pueblos indígenas se encuentran todavía frente a un largo camino por recorrer para alcanzar una ciudadanía en igualdad de condiciones, pero a la vez con un estatus especial, y para instituir políticas públicas coherentes para pueblos indígenas, debido en parte a la confusión y falta de unanimidad sobre las estrategias más exitosas que deben aplicar los gobiernos y aparatos estatales. El presente estudio sobre las políticas públicas en América Latina muestra un balance de los actuales esfuerzos teniendo en cuenta los casos de los pueblos indígenas en México, Guatemala, Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia.

Region: Latin America

Type: Books
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: This paper examines the trend in post-Apartheid earnings inequality in South Africa. By combining data sets, the paper is able to analyze the trend for the whole period 1995-2004. Earnings inequality rose sharply during 1995-1999 and then declined marginally, but remained high, during 2000-2004. A dramatic rise in unemployment was the driving force in exacerbating earnings inequality in the 1990s. Unemployment began to level off in the 2000s but remained at a high rate. An unprecedented influx of new entrants into the formal labour market in the 1990s put downward pressure on average real wages, affecting workers both in the middle of the distribution and toward the bottom. The growth of the South African economy has been neither rapid enough nor employment-intensive enough to absorb such a large influx of workers. Moreover, the economy’s greater openness to trade and financial flows appears to have left many workers behind, especially Africans, workers in low-skilled occupations, residents of rural areas in general and poor regions in particular. Earnings inequality remains high across groupings of workers differentiated by race, education and occupation although occupation has become a more important factor than the other two in the 2000s. Differentials across the mean earnings of workers classified by rural and urban residence and by province have also intensified. In the 1990s, inequalities within groupings of worker rose sharply and then moderated by the 2000s. While earnings differentials by race and the rural-urban divide also exacerbated inequality in the 1990s, they have been in modest decline since then. These changes in the dynamics of earnings inequality between the 1990s and 2000s pose new challenges for South African policymakers in their efforts to substantially reduce the Apartheid legacy of high inequality and poverty.

Region: Africa

Type: Papers
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: The authors introduce a new worldwide measure of welfare, which they call the Vast Majority Income (VMI). The VMI directly calculates the per capita income of the first 80 per cent of the population. It combines information on income levels and their distribution into a single measure.

Region: International

Type: Policy Briefs
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: Understanding evidence

Summary: Este informe del Banco Interamericano para el Desarrollo (BID) forma parte de los Informes de Progreso Económico y Social en América Latina. El mismo trata el tema de la naturaleza multidimensional e interrelacionada de la exclusión social y va más allá del énfasis tradicional en los resultados y en los grupos, para ver a la exclusión como un proceso que resulta de las tendencias societales. Utilizando herramientas económicas, se demuestran los enormes costos de la exclusión, sugieriendo que las políticas inclusivas deben ser consideradas una importante inversión.

Region: Latin America

Type: Reports
Sector: Inequality
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -