Nº 17 (January, 2005). Leonardo Gasparini.

Social protection is usually linked to employment conditions. This paper characterizes the level, trends, and structure of social protection for workers in Latin America, focusing on the relationship between protection and employment condition. For this purpose, the study uses a sample of household surveys from several countries in the region: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. The estimates include statistics on contract coverage, employment duration, pension rights, severances, unemployment insurance, unions and social assistance programs for different groups of workers, for every country and year. Special emphasis is placed on the advantages of using household surveys as sources of information on social protection and employment studies, despite some shortcomings which are still evident in coverage and comparability.

Published in Bertranou (ed.) (2005). Protección Social y Mercado Laboral de la OIT.

A derivation of this paper was published as Gasparini, L. y Bertranou, F. (2005). Social Protection and Labor Markets in Latin America: What Do Household Surveys Tell Us? International Social Security Review 58: 2-3 (July)