Book Description

This work originated in a research project for the measurement and analysis of income distribution in the Latin American countries, undertaken jointly by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the World Bank. The present paper presents estimates of the extent of absolute poverty for ten Latin American countries and for the region as a whole in the 1970s, on the basis of available household surveys and population censuses. They are based on country-specific poverty lines representing minimum acceptable levels of private consumption, drawn according to a food-based method. Such poverty lines - ranging from 150 to 250 dollars of annual household consumption per capita - express a normative definition of the absolute dimensions of poverty, partly based on expert appraisals and partly reflecting the actual behavior of low income households facing the life style projected by Latin American development. According to these estimates, 40 percent of Latin American households were poor at the beginning of the 1970s, the incidence of poverty being 26 percent in urban areas and 60 percent in rural areas. Urban poverty extended to more than one-third of urban households in some countries (Brazil, Colombia, Honduras) while affecting between 20 and 30 percent in others (Peru, Mexico, Venezuela), about 15 percent in Costa Rica and Chile and less than 10 percent in Argentina and Uruguay. The extent of poverty in rural areas would not be less than 20 percent in any case and would reach more than 60 percent in some countries. The corresponding poverty gaps were also estimated; in terms of total household income, they may represent manageable proportions (around 2-3 percent) in the better-off countries, but are in the 4-8 percent range in the bigger countries of the region and reach as much as 12 percent in Peru and 17 percent in Honduras.