Abstract
This chapter shows the results obtained in the search for empirical information on social aspects in Latin America relating to social vulnerability on a national scale. It also puts forward the reasoning behind this methodological approach, the procedures employed in the search and the problems encountered, establishing where possible a comparison with the Spanish case. It shows the results obtained in the selection of indicators and in the data corresponding to each of them for the vast majority of Latin American countries, and it compares the available indicators in Spain and Argentina covering the dimensions and the representative variables of different conditions of social vulnerability.
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Notes
- 1.
The Poverty Line (PL) represents the level of income required by a household to meet its member’s basic needs. It uses the average estimated cost of a basket of staple foods multiplied by the Engel coefficient (ratio of food expenditures to total expenditures). The resulting value would indicate the income necessary to cover a wide range of basic needs: food, housing, clothes, education, health, transport and leisure that together constitute the basic total family basket (CBT). The PL is related to the identification of “new poor”, i.e. those sectors (mainly middle class) that have become poor due to the permanent loss of capital as a result of the recent process of economic adjustment.
- 2.
Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) this measurement uses data from the census and the Permanent Household Survey (Encuesta Permanente de Hogares). The UBN index combines 5 indicators for each family: overcrowding, sanitary conditions of the household, schooling, employment and educational level of the head of family. It is used to identify the “structural poor”, i.e. those who have always been poor.
- 3.
Assets refer to the possession by individuals of material and symbolic resources that allow them to take part in society. The structure of opportunities is determined by the State, the market and society; it is not regulated by the individual (Filgueira, 2006:27).
- 4.
To carry out these objectives it was suggested to develop actions that can be monitored through a set of indicators. These goals are proposed to eradicate Extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability, develop a global partnership for development (http://www.undp.org/).
- 5.
- 6.
By means of these processes and procedures the research goes from summarised/synthetic information to more detailed information, to focus on a particular aspect or on a smaller unit of information.
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Calvo, A., Caspani, M.L., Barrenechea, J., Natenzon, C.E. (2012). Statistical Information for the Analysis of Social Vulnerability in Latin America – Comparison with Spain. In: Vázquez-Brust, D., Plaza-Úbeda, J., de Burgos-Jiménez, J., Natenzon, C. (eds) Business and Environmental Risks. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2742-7_3
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