Reconfiguring old-age pensions in Latin America: Shared trends and contrasting designs in coverage expansion policies in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile

ARZA, CAMILA

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; ISA-FLACSO Conference "Global and Regional Powers in a Changing World"; 2014

International Studies Association (ISA) y Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO)

This paper studies the process of pension coverage expansion in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, and evaluates how the recent expansion of non-contributory and semi-contributory pensions has reconfigured the structure of old-age protection. Its findings point to substantial variation across countries in the most important design features of coverage expansion strategies and explains these variation looking at three features of reform processes: (1) the lack of a blueprint for reform advocated from above, (2) domestic politics that crafted policy alternatives to fit local interests and preferences, expanding benefits without imposing costs on insiders, and (3) the impact of policy legacies. The massification of benefits does not as yet come with a shared trend towards a similar pension model nor with a generalised shift to universalism.