The drop in inequality in Latin America

GABRIEL KESSLER

Shangai

Simposio; No one left behind: Tackling poverty and inequality in Asia and around the world under the 2030 Agenda; 2017

Shangai Academy of Social Sciences

In Latin America the gini index has dropped basically between 2003 and 2013, First in the most than 10 countries which turned to left or center-left during the post neoliberal period and then also in countries which remained at right like Peru or Colombia (Mexico is may be the exception).. Also Poverty and extreme poverty dropped. (show slide 2, 3 and 4)That situation triggered an unknown optimism at the same time among left wing administrations as well in multilateral organizations as WB; IFM and IDB. May be, they began to dream, our persistent and historical inequality was beginning to be tackled? As you can imagine, there was not a simple answer and many debates around the topic came up: what really gini index talk about? what kind of inequality are we talking about? How to depict the social impact of a change in the gini?, how sustainable the drop of inequality would be and so on.Moreover Sociology, political science and anthropology and some economists added other questions: in particular how to turn quantitative index into qualitative ones. In other words, how we depict or translate the drop of 0.2 or 0.3 points in the gini index in terms of living conditions. And there were also questions about the place of politics and social movements, how they contributed to the drop of inequality as well as what happened with others dimensions of inequality, and so onBottom line: the drop in inequality fostered more new questions than definitive answers in a very rich and on-going debate among countries and disciplines.For that reason, I`d like to share with you the main trends and debates about the drop of inequality in LA in order to think together if for once, our experience in the last decade and a half can be useful for other regions, in this case, Asia. Moreover, as the pink tide is ebbing, I?d like to describe the current situation regarding inequality and the challenges toward the future.