| dc.description.abstract | In the mid-1990s, countries such as Brazil and Mexico started implementing
the income transfer programs, which in their current versions we know as
“Bolsa Familia” and “Oportunidades,” respectively. The main short-term goal
of these initiatives, and of many others developed in the countries of the
region, was to reduce poverty. Their medium- and long-term purposes were
to develop human capital through the nutrition, health, and education triad.
In the case of Argentina, the equivalent of the Latin American
experiences mentioned above was the 2004 “Families for social inclusion”
program, which came about as an offshoot of the first mass income transfer
program, known as the “Unemployed Heads of Household Plan.”“Families for
social inclusion” was a focused program, with a geographic reach and limited
coverage compared to the regional experiences mentioned.
During the 2009 international crisis, while undergoing a progressive
stagnation of full employment creation, the Argentinean state extended the
social protection regime targeted at the vulnerable population through the “Universal Allowance per Child for Social Protection” (AUH). This allowance
was established by a Necessity and Urgency Decree [Argentina (Decree
1602/2009), 2009],2 and it constitutes a turning point in the social
protection system.
With the AUH, the Argentinean state acknowledges social inequality in
the access to social protection, which is reflected in the duality between the
population that belongs to the formal sector (with access to health coverage,
retirement contributions, and work-related accidents insurance) and the
population that has restricted access as a result of being part of the informal
market, unemployed, or idle. In average, informal employment in Argentina
between 2010 and 2012 affected 35% of the economically active population
(PÉA). Without a doubt, here lies one of the main differences from other
previous and current programs in the region. The eligibility criteria for the
population are defined by the relationship of the parents with the job
market.
This transformation of the social security system was accompanied by
the restructuring of the preexisting economic assistance programs to the
extent that the creation of the AUH was accompanied by the immediate
incorporation of children under 18 years from homes that up to that moment
received income from social programs. It is estimated that, with the
restructuring of the system, over 2.2 million children immediately became
direct beneficiaries of the new scheme. In 2012, there were 3.5 million of
children with AUH (1.9 million of participant households). The cash transfers
of this allowance, along with the family pensions and the contributions from
other municipally managed income transfer programs, represent between
0.6 and 0.8% of the GDP... | |
