The Evolution of Income Distribution in Latin America 2001–2011

Abstract

Latin America has historically been considered one of the regions with the highest levels of socio-economic inequalities in the world. All countries in the region are characterised by high levels of inequality as regards the distribution of income, consumption, land, access to education and basic services, as well as other socio-economic variables. This situation has been well documented in several studies, most of them covering just a single Latin American country. However, the lack of reliable and comparable microdata has always been an obstacle to produce analysis at the regional level. Nevertheless, there are some studies which assess the evolution of income distribution in Latin America as a whole by aggregating comparable data from single countries. These studies all reached similar conclusions on the relatively high level of inequality in the region. (…)