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Multidimensional Poverty Among Older People in Five Latin American Countries

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Abstract

This paper offers an updated picture of the nature of deprivation in old age in Latin America, as well as an analysis of its different dimensions. Based on harmonized cross-sectional social protection surveys for Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Uruguay we estimate and compare multidimensional poverty indices for older adults. We consider the following dimensions: housing, health, labor and social security, and education. Our results illustrate the disparities in multidimensional poverty of the older people across the region. We also provide original evidence about deprivations in health that go beyond health coverage and underline the importance of Social security at older ages. The general picture indicates that Housing is the dimension with lower deprivation rates, whereas Health presents the higher levels of deprivation. Chile and Uruguay stand out for their relatively good performance in Labor and Social Security.

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Fig. 1

Source LSPS

Fig. 2

Source LSPS

Fig. 3

Source LSPS

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Availability of data and material

Data used in this paper can be downloaded from https://mydata.iadb.org/Labor/Harmonized-LSPS-Longitudinal-Social-Protection-Sur/ck3a-ui6v.

Code availability

Available upon request.

Notes

  1. A different approach is presented by Gasparini et al. (2010), who consider monetary poverty among the older people. They find, based on cross country regressions, a significant negative relationship between relative old age poverty (compared to other ages) and the development of the pension system.

  2. The proposal of Alkire y Foster (2007) is more general, and generates a unique class of poverty measures (Mα), based on Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures. These measures include not only the adjusted headcount ratio (M0), but also the Adjusted Poverty Gap (M1) and the Adjusted Squared Poverty Gap (M2). These last two measures are not calculated in this article.

  3. The approach of the Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) developed by ECLAC (United Nations) in the 80 s included these dimensions (see Feres and Mancero, 2001).

  4. Over 10 per cent of income data is missing in all countries and the figures are significantly higher for Chile and Colombia. This problem intensifies for the older people in every country.

  5. In Chile, retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women, whereas in Uruguay and Paraguay it is set at 60 for both sexes. In Colombia, the age limit is set only in the public scheme, being 62 for men and 57 for women. Finally, in El Salvador, workers can retire once they have reached 60 (men) or 55 years old (women). However, in Latin America retirement age is not a sharp restriction to employment, especially in the informal sector.

  6. Despite of its name, the harmonized LSPS only provides longitudinal data for Chile. The second wave of the Uruguayan survey was released recently but is not included in the harmonized dataset. In this study, a cross sectional approach was followed, considering only one dataset for each country.

  7. The selection of the respondent was based on administrative registers in Chile, it was random in El Salvador, Paraguay and Uruguay, and in Colombia, all members of the household aged 10 or more were interviewed. Methodological details about this data base can be found in https://publications.iadb.org/en/publication/12803/database-and-related-documents-lsps-longitudinal-social-protection-survey.

  8. These estimates are based on ECLAC absolute poverty lines (see ECLAC, 2018) and calculated using household surveys. Results based on national poverty lines display a similar pattern.

  9. According to CEPALSTAT (web portal that provides access to statistics and indicators for Latin American countries, elaborated by ECLAC, United Nations), the probability of living in rural areas is between 1 and 4 higher for men in the countries considered in this study. Information disaggregated by age is not available.

  10. The programs included are Pensión Básica Solidaria in Chile, Pensión Básica Universal for El Salvador, Pensión Alimentaria para Adultos Mayores in Paraguay, and disability, old-age, and widow’s pensions in Uruguay.

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Funding

This paper received funding from Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Inter-American Conference on Social Security (CISS) project for the use of the Longitudinal Social Protection Survey (LSPS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Verónica Amarante & Maira Colacce

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Verónica Amarante & Maira Colacce

Authors
  1. Verónica Amarante
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  2. Maira Colacce
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and methodology design. Data analysis was performed by Maira Colacce. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Verónica Amarnte and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Verónica Amarante.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 4 and Tables 7 , 8.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Source: LSPS

Multidimensional poverty index in the older people for different poverty cutoffs (k values) and age cutoff.

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Table 7 Older people deprivation rates by indicators and dimensions. Men and women
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Table 8 Multidimensional poverty among the indigenous and afro older population
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Amarante, V., Colacce, M. Multidimensional Poverty Among Older People in Five Latin American Countries. Soc Indic Res 159, 945–965 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02782-9

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