Poverty continues to challenge Latin American and Caribbean countries, with approximately one in three people in the region in poverty and one in seven in extreme poverty. This paper provides up-to-date insights through analysis of who the poor are, where they are located, and how they live in the region. First, it uses a large collection of household surveys that extend through 2023 to characterize the poor. It examines (1) how many people in the region are poor, (2) how the poor are distributed geographically within and across countries, (3) how poverty affects specific groups (e.g., women, children, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people), (4) how much of the poverty in the region is chronic and how much is transitory, and (5) how poverty numbers have changed over time. Second, it identifies how the extreme and chronically poor live relative to others in their same countries, providing insights into policy responses. Specifically, it discusses (6) the living arrangements of the poor, (7) the assets they have access to, (8) how they earn their incomes, (9) how they access human capital services such as education and health, and (10) what access they have to social programs. While this analysis is descriptive, it may be useful both for targeting efforts and for generating new hypotheses for poverty reduction that can subsequently be tested causally.
Authors
Chang, Jillie, Evans, David Kirkham, Rivas Herrera, Carolina
- DOI
- http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0013249
- Pages
- 72
- Published in
- United States of America
Table of Contents
- IDB-WP-01644 . WORKING-PAPER- FP (1) 1
- 10 findings on poverty - draft paper - Nov 15a 4
- 1. Introduction 5
- 2. Methods 6
- 3. Results 8
- 3.1 Five findings characterizing the poor population 8
- 3.2 Five facts on how the poor live 12
- 4. Discussion 17
- 5. Works cited 19
- 6. Figure and tables 23
- Figure 1A: Percentage of Population by Poverty Status and Country 23
- Figure 1B: Population by Poverty Status and Country, 2023 24
- Figure 2A: Population in Extreme Poverty by Area 25
- Figure 2B: Population in Moderate Poverty by Area and Country 25
- Figure 3A: Proportion of Specific Groups that are in Poverty 26
- Figure 3B: Proportion of Poor Population Made Up by Specific Groups 27
- Figure 4A: Chronic Poverty in Latin American Countries (2013-2022) 27
- Figure 4B. Entry Into and Exit From Poverty in Latin America (2013-2022) 28
- Figure 5A: Trends in Total Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2003 - 2023 28
- Figure 5B: Trends in Extreme Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2003 - 2023 29
- Figure 5C: Trends in Moderate Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2003 - 2023 30
- Figure 6A: Age Structure of Family Households in Latin America and the Caribbean by Poverty Status 30
- Figure 6B: Household Characteristics 31
- Figure 6C: Permanent Construction Materials of the households 32
- Figure 7A: Assets and Infrastructure Services 32
- Figure 8A: Employment 33
- Figure 8B: Formal Employment 34
- Figure 8C: Working Hours 35
- Figure 8D: Hourly Wage in Cents for Every USD Earned by the Non-Poor 36
- Figure 9A: Percentage of Population Without Health Insurance 36
- Figure 9B: Years of Education 37
- Figure 9C: School Enrollment (4- and 5-year-olds) 37
- Figure 9D: Secondary Completion Rate 38
- Figure 10A: Coverage of CCT programs in Latin America and the Caribbean 39
- Figure 10B: Distribution of CCT Program Beneficiaries in Latin America and the Caribbean 40
- Online appendix 41
- Appendix A. Differences in poverty estimates between our estimates, World Bank estimates, and ECLAC/CEPAL estimates 41
- Appendix Tables and Figures 44
- Appendix Table A0A. Surveys Analyzed by Country 44
- Appendix Figure A2A. Total Population by Area and Country 46
- Appendix Table A3A. Proportion of Specific Groups that are in Poverty by Country Minus the Level of Poverty for the General Population in that Country 47
- Appendix Table A3B. Proportion of Poor Population Made up by Specific Groups by Country 49
- Appendix Table A3C. Poverty Rate by Area and Race/Ethnicity 54
- Appendix Figure A5A. Trends in Extreme, Moderate and Total Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2003 – 2023 54
- Appendix Table A6A. Age Structure of Family Households in Latin America and the Caribbean by Poverty Status and Country 56
- Appendix Table A6B. Household Size (Average Number of Members) in Latin America and the Caribbean by Poverty Status and Country 57
- Appendix Tables A6C. Permanent Construction Materials of the households in Latin America and the Caribbean by Poverty Status and Country 58
- Appendix Tables A7A. Assets and Infrastructure Services in Latin America and the Caribbean by Poverty Status and Country 61
- Appendix Figure A8A: Sectors Where Poor and Non-Poor Are Employed 70
- Appendix Figure A9B. Mean Score in Mathematics, PISA 70
- Appendix References 72
