Does Barbados still have a poverty problem?
Latin America and the Caribbean is a very diverse region that does not follow a single pattern of change. However, one common feature among the countries of the region is that they have all undergone significant social, economic and environmental changes in recent years.
These changes are not the result of a laissez-faire approach; rather, they have been caused by the implementation of public policies that have shaped not only economic growth (income) but also the population’s achievements in the social sphere, employment and education (beyond income).
Forty-two per cent of the population was shown to be living in income poverty in 2002, but this percentage had plummeted to a little over 24 percent a decade later in 2013.
In absolute terms, the number of people living in income poverty decreased steadily throughout this period, from almost 214 million to under 142 million, which indicates that some 72 million people in the region were able to escape their poverty.
Of these 72 million people, 59 million were living in conditions of extreme poverty in 2002.
Along with this reduction in poverty, a number of people experienced increasing incomes at a rate that allowed them to move into the middle strata of the income pyramid.
On the one hand, the population living in economic vulnerability swelled by almost 45 million people during this period, rising from 179 million people in 2002 to 224 million people in 2013, a year in which this population accounted for some 38 per cent of the region’s population as a whole.
On the other hand, the size of the middle class increased by almost 94 million people, rising from 108 million people in 2002 (equivalent to 21 per cent of the total population) to almost 202 million people in 2013 (equivalent to 35 per cent of the total population).
These changes were accompanied by a notable drop in income inequality. Dynamic shifts in income make it possible to observe the different processes involved in escaping or falling back into poverty.
While millions of people escaped poverty through one route, a certain number of people also fell back into it through another route.
Different employment and social processes are obscured by the net effect of these changes.
When examined overall, individual patterns of change in income over the period 2003 to 2013 suggest that between 49.6 and 65.4 per cent of the region’s population experienced an improved economic situation that allowed them to move into a higher income group; for example from extreme poverty to moderate poverty or from moderate poverty into economic vulnerability.
Just 0.5 to 3.6 per cent of the population experienced a downward movement, for example from economic vulnerability to income poverty or from the middle class to vulnerability.
The region of Latin America and the Caribbean requires a renewed focus on public policy to deal with current challenges, as well as to sustain, consolidate and continue with past achievements in terms of well-being.
Among the main challenges are reduced productive inclusion, the regressive nature of many tax systems, the substandard quality of education, the segmentation of social protection systems, and the absence of care systems.
Comprehensive policies that can act simultaneously on various fronts must be developed.
