Social Development and Public Governance > Social Development > Social Inclusion
About Social Exclusion
The Latin American and Caribbean region is one of the most unequal in the developing world. It is a region where income, opportunity, and resources systematically and disproportionately accrue to only certain, more elite segments of the population. For many years, the poverty and social degradation that results from the region's inequality was considered largely an economic problem. Just in the last few years, greater attention and analysis is being paid to a more complex set of social, economic, and cultural practices that comprise "social exclusion", in which certain populations are excluded from the benefits of social and economic development based on their race, gender, ethnicity, or disabilities.
Social exclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean affects predominantly indigenous peoples, afro-descendants, women, persons with disability, and those living with the stigma of HIV/AIDS, affecting their opportunity to access formal employment, credit, decent housing, adequate health care, quality education, safe and secure living conditions as well as their treatment by the legal and criminal justice systems.
The complex problem of social exclusion appears to be intensified and more severe for individuals that belong to multiple excluded groups. For example, educational and job opportunities are more limited for indigenous women than indigenous men. In addition, discrimination and racism can occur on multiple levels for the same individual. For example, a black intravenous drug user infected with HIV/AIDS can face racial and legal discrimination, prohibited from access to health care based on presumed criminal behavior.
As social exclusion so severely restricts access to the services and jobs needed for a minimal standard of living, there is a high correlation between poverty and social exclusion. Even when they are not the majority of the poor, the excluded typically constitute the poorest. These telling trends make clear that poverty reduction in the region will not be successful without also addressing the complex determinants of social exclusion.
Ironically, the excluded are not small segments of the population in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a number of countries with high Indigenous or Afro-descendent populations they can actually constitute the majority. Afro-descendents are often considered among the most invisible among the invisible. They are nearly absent among national political, economic and educational leadership. Despite their invisibility, preliminary estimates put the Afro-descendent population at a surprising 30% of the region's population with the largest concentrations in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Haiti. The data and estimates on the size of the Afro-descendent population in the region vary widely in how the population is defined, when the estimates were made, and the quality of the surveys carried out. Even given the methodological difficulties, it is clear that the concentration of poverty and reduced access to services among Afro-descendent populations is striking. For example, more than 80% of people of African descent in Colombia live in extreme poverty and have annual incomes per capita of $500 to $600, three times below the national average of $1500.
Indigenous peoples also comprise substantial numbers. Overall, there are approximately 40 million persons of indigenous origin in Latin America and the Caribbean, 10% of the total population in region, but they comprise more than 25% of the total poor. In Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala, ethnic groups (both Indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples) constitute the majority of the population and 60% of the poor.
In terms of HIV/AIDS, it is estimated that 1.8 million people are living with the virus in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNAIDS, 2001). Women account for 14 to 45% of all persons with HIV/AIDS. The relationship between HIV/AIDS and ethnicity is also strong in the region. The Garifuna in Honduras, a black/indigenous population, has one the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the region.
In any given country, approximately 5 to 15% of the population is estimated to be living with a disability. Stigmas and physical barriers to the inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWD) are omnipresent in the entire region. New research from the region shows that PWD have lower levels of educational achievement and are less likely to be employed than their non-disabled peers.
The challenges to gender equality cut across all the affected socially marginalized populations. The gains that women in the region have seen in schooling, women's health, and the earnings gap between males and females have largely not accrued to those women in marginalized populations. In Guatemala, the salaries of Indigenous women are 36% less than the salaries of non-Indigenous women. Indigenous women get less schooling in Guatemala compared to their non-Indigenous female counterparts. Within the disability community, women with disability have less schooling and labor market participation than do men with disability.
The benefits of more active policies to promote social inclusion are many. A recent IDB study estimated the gains to the gross domestic product (GDP) on a per country basis if labor discrimination against Afro-descendent and Indigenous populations was eliminated. The findings were dramatic. Under these conditions, the Bolivian economy would expand by 36.7%, Brazil by 12.8%, Guatemala by 13.6% and Peru by 4.2%. These benefits to reducing discrimination do not include the improvements in social cohesion, community integration, educational performance, among others, that also result from greater inclusion.
Last updated: 03/29/07
