Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:51:10.110Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition and Change during the Neoliberal Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Alejandro Portes  and
Kelly Hoffman
Alejandro Portes
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Kelly Hoffman
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article proposes a framework for the analysis of social classes in Latin America and presents evidence on the composition of the class structure in the region and its evolution during the last two decades, corresponding to the years of implementation of a new economic model in most countries. The paper is an update of an earlier article on the same topic published in this journal at the end of the period of import substitution industrialization. Relative to that earlier period, the present era registers a visible increase in income inequality, a persistent concentration of wealth in the top decile of the population, a rapid expansion of the class of micro-entrepreneurs, and a stagnation or increase of the informal proletariat. The contraction of public sector employment and the stagnation of formal sector labor demand in most countries have led to a series of adaptive solutions by the middle and lower classes. The rise of informal self-employment and micro-entrepreneurialism throughout the region can be interpreted as a direct result of the new adjustment policies. We explore other, less orthodox adaptive strategies, including the rise of violent crime in the cities and migration abroad by an increasingly diversified cross-section of the population. The impact that changes in the class structure have had on party politics and other forms of popular political mobilization in Latin American countries is discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , 2003 , pp. 41 - 82
Copyright
Copyright 2003 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

1.

We thank Emilio Klein for assistance in our preliminary assembling of data for this paper and Peter Evans, William Smith, and Susan Eckstein for their comments on an earlier version of the paper. Responsibility for the contents is exclusively ours.

References

ARRIAGADA, IRMA, and GODOY, LORENA 2000 Prevention or Repression? The False Dilemma of Citizen Security. CEPAL Review 70 (April): 111136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AYRES, ROBERT 1998 Crime and Violence as Development Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Viewpoints Series, World Bank Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The World Bank, Washington D.C., 24 March.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BENERA, LOURDES 1989 Subcontracting and Employment Dynamics in Mexico City. In The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, edited by Alejandro Portes, Manuel Castells, and Lauren A. Benton. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 17388.Google Scholar
BIRKBECK, CHRIS 1978 Garbage, Industry, and the Vultures of Cali, Colombia. In Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities, edited by Bromley, R. and Gerry, C. N.Y.: John Wiley.Google Scholar
BOSWELL, THOMAS D., and SKOP, EMILY 1995 Hispanic National Groups in Metropolitan Miami. Miami: Cuban American National Council.Google Scholar
BOURGUIGNON, FRANCOIS 1999 Crime, Violence, and Inequitable Development. Paper prepared for the Annual Conference on Development Economics, The World Bank.Google Scholar
BROMLEY, R. 1978 Organization, Regulation, and Exploitation in the So-Called Urban Informal Sector: The Street Traders of Cali, Colombia. World Development 6, no. 910:1161171. N.Y.: John Wiley.Google Scholar
CAPECCHI, VITTORIO 1989 The Informal Economy and the Development of Flexible Specialization. In The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, edited by Portes, Alejandro, Castells, Manuel, and Benton, Lauren A., 189215. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
CARCHEDI, G. 1977 On the Economic Identification of Social Classes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
CASTELLS, MANUEL, and PORTES, ALEJANDRO 1989 World Underneath: The Origins, Dynamics, and Effects of the Informal Economy. In The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, edited by Portes, Alejandro, Castells, Manuel, and Benton, Lauren A., 1137. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
CLARK, TERRY N., and LIPSET, SEYMOUR M. 1991 Are Social Classes Dying? International Sociology 6 (December): 397410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CRIADO, MARA JESUS 2001 La lnea quebrada: historias de vida de migrantes. Madrid: Consejo Econmico y Social, Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gassett.Google Scholar
CROSS, JOHN C. 1998 Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DAHRENDORF, RALF 1959 Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
DE ROUX, GUSTAVO 1993 Ciudad y violencia en Amrica Latina. Paper presented to the first Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Violence and the City, Cali, Colombia, December.Google Scholar
DAZ, ALVARO 1996 Chile: hacia el pos-neoliberalismo? Paper presented at the Conference on Responses of Civil Society to Neo-Liberal Adjustment. Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, April.Google Scholar
ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (ECLAC) 2001 Agenda social: seguridad ciudadana y violencia. In Panorama Social de Amrica Latina, 20540. Santiago de Chile: ECLAC.Google Scholar
ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (ECLAC) 2000 Social Panorama of Latin America, 19992000. Annual Report, Santiago de Chile: ECLAC.Google Scholar
EMMANUEL, ARGHIRI 1972 Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar
FILGUEIRA, CARLOS 1996 Estado y sociedad civil: polticas de ajuste estructural y estabilizacin en Amrica Latina. Paper Presented at the Conference on Responses by Civil Society to Neoliberal Adjustment. Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, April.Google Scholar
FIREBAUGH, GLENN 1999 Empirics of World Income Inequality. American Journal of Sociology 104 (May): 15971630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FIX, MICHAEL, and PASSEL, JEFFREY S. 1991 The Door Remains Open: Recent Immigration to the United States and a Preliminary Analysis of the Immigration Act of 1990. Report, the Urban Institute and the Rand Corporation.Google Scholar
FORTUNA, JUAN CARLOS, and PRATES, SUZANNA 1989 Informal Sector Versus Informalized Labor Relations in Uruguay. In The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, edited by Portes, Alejandro, Castells, Manuel, and Benton, Lauren A., 7884. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
FUNDACIN PAZ CIUDADANA 1998 Delincuencia y opinin pblica. Report, Santiago de Chile: Centro de Documentacin Paz Ciudadana.Google Scholar
FURTADO, CELSO 1970 Obstacles to Development in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
GALBRAITH, JAMES K. 2002 A Perfect Crime: Global Inequality. Daedalus 131 (Winter): 1125.Google Scholar
GAVIRIA, ALEJANDRO, and PAGS, CARMEN 1999 Patterns of Crime Victimization in Latin America. Working Paper #408, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington D.C., 29 October.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GERMANI, GINO 1965 Hacia una democracia de masas. In Argentina: sociedad de masas, edited by Torcuato S. di Tella, Germani, Gino, and Graciarena, Jorge, 20627. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires.Google Scholar
GOLDTHORPE, JOHN 2001 Class and Politics in Advanced Industrial Societies. In The Breakdown of Class Politics, edited by Clark, Terry N. and Lipset, Seymour M., 10520. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
GONZLEZ DE LA ROCHA, MERCEDES 2001 From the Resources of Poverty to the Poverty of Resources? The Erosion of a Survival Model. Paper presented at the conference, Out of the Shadows: Political Action and the Informal Economy. Center for Migration and Development, Princeton University, November.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRUSKY, DAVID B., and SORENSEN, JESPER B. 1998 Can Class Analysis Be Salvaged? American Journal of Sociology 103 (March): 1187234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GUARNIZO, LUIS E., and DAZ, LUZ M. 1999 Transnational Migration: A View from Colombia. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22: 397421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GUARNIZO, LUIS E., SNCHEZ, ARTURO I., and ROACH, ELIZABETH M. 1999 Mistrust, Fragmented Solidarity, and Transnational Migration: Colombians in New York and Los Angeles, 1999. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (March): 36796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HALL, JOHN R. 1997 The Reworking of Class Analysis. In Reworking Class, edited by Hall, John R., 137. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOPKINS, TERENCE K., and WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL 1977 Patterns of Development in the Modern World-System. Review 1: 11145.Google Scholar
HOUT, MICHAEL, BROOKS, CLEM, and MANZA, JEFF 1993 The Persistence of Classes in Post-Industrial Societies. international Sociology 8 (September): 25977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE (ILO)/LIMA 2000 Panorama laboral: la estructura del empleo urbano en el perodo 19901998. Report of the ILO Regional Office, www.ilolim.org.pc/panorama/1999.Google Scholar
ITZIGSOHN, JOSE 2000 Developing Poverty: The State, Labor Market Deregulation, and the Informal Economy in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
KATZMAN, RUBEN 2002 Convergencias y divergencias: exploracin sobre los efectos de las nuevas modalidades de crecimiento sobre la estructura social de cuatro ciudades. Working Paper, Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
KLEIN, EMILIO, and TOKMAN, VICTOR 2000 La estratificacin social bajo tensin en la era de la globalizacin. Revista de la CEPAL 72 (December): 730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KORZENIEWICZ, ROBERTO, and SMITH, WILLIAM C. 2000 Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Latin America: Searching for the High Road to Globalization. Latin American Research Review 35: 754.Google Scholar
KYLE, DAVID 2000 Transnational Peasants: Migration, Networks, and Ethnicity in Andean Ecuador. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
LATIN AMERICAN WEEKLY REPORT 2002 Emigrants' Remittances Still Going Strong. LAWR-02-05, 29 January, 5657.Google Scholar
LEVITT, PEGGY 2001 The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LOMNITZ, LARISSA 1977 Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican Shantytown. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
LONDOO, JUAN LUIS 1996 Violence, Psyche, and Social Capital. Paper prepared for the second annual World Bank Conference on Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, Bogot, July.Google Scholar
LOZANO, WILFREDO 1997 Dominican Republic: Informal Economy, the State, and the Urban Poor. In The Urban Caribbean: Transition to the New Global Economy, edited by Portes, Alejandro, Carlos Dor y Cabral, and Landolt, Patricia, 15389. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
LUXEMBOURG, ROSA 1951 The Accumulation of Capital. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
MARGOLIS, MAXINE 1994 Little Brazil, an Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
MASSEY, DOUGLAS S., and DURAND, JORGE 2002 Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
MERTON, ROBERT K. 1968 Social Structure and Anomie. In Social Theory and Social Structure, by Merton, Robert K., 185214. 2d ed. N.Y.: Free Press.Google Scholar
MILLS, C. WRIGHT 1959 The Power Elite. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
NUN, JOSE 1969 Superpoblacin relativa, ejrcito industrial de reserva y masa marginal. Revista Latinoamericana de Sociologa 5: 178235.Google Scholar
PEATTIE, LISA 1982 What is to Be Done with the Informal Sector? A Case Study of Shoe Manufacturers in Colombia. In Towards a Political Economy of Urbanization in Third World Countries, edited by Safa, Helen, 20832. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
PREZ-SAINZ, JUAN PABLO 1992 Ciudad de Guatemala en la dcada de los ochenta: crisis y urbanizacin. In Urbanizacin en Centroamrica, edited by Portes, Alejandro and Lungo, Mario, 189289. San Jose: FLACSO.Google Scholar
PORTES, ALEJANDRO 1985 Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition and Change during the Last Decade. Latin American Research Review 20: 739.Google Scholar
PORTES, ALEJANDRO 1997 Neoliberalism and the Sociology of Development: Emerging Trends and Unanticipated Facts. Population and Development Review 22 (June): 22959.Google Scholar
PORTES, ALEJANDRO 2000 The Resilient Significance of Class: A Nominalist Interpretation. Political Power and Social Theory 14: 24984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PORTES, ALEJANDRO, and RUMBAUT, RUBN G. 1996 Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
PORTES, ALEJANDRO, and WALTON, JOHN 1981 Labor, Class, and the International System. N.Y.: Academic Press.Google Scholar
POULANTZAS, NICOS 1975 Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar
PREBISCH, RAUL 1950 The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems. N.Y.: United Nations.Google Scholar
PROGRAMA REGIONAL DE EMPLEO PARA AMRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE (PREALC) 1989 Annotated Bibliography of the Urban Informal Sector in Latin America. ILO/PREALC Working Paper #332. Santiago de Chile: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
PROGRAMA REGIONAL DE EMPLEO PARA AMRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE (PREALC) 1990 Empleo y equidad: el desafio de los 90. Santiago de Chile: PREALC.Google Scholar
RAMOS, CARLOS 2002 Remarks delivered at the Conference on Transnational Migration, sponsored by the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and the Princeton Center for Migration and Development, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: 1819 January.Google Scholar
ROBERTS, BRYAN R. 1976 The Provincial Urban System and the Process of Dependency. In Current Perspectives in Latin American Urban Research, edited by Portes, Alejandro and Browning, Harley L., 13350. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies Publications Series, University of Texas.Google Scholar
ROBERTS, BRYAN R. 1978 Cities of Peasants: The Political Economy of Urbanization in the Third World. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
ROBERTS, BRYAN R. 1989 Employment Structure, Life Cycle, and Life Chances: Formal and Informal Sectors in Guadalajara. In The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, edited by Portes, Alejandro, Castells, Manuel, and Benton, Lauren A., 4159. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
ROBERTS, BRYAN R. 2001 Globalization and Latin American Cities. Paper presented at the Session on Global Cities in Comparative Perspective, meetings of the American Sociological Association, August.Google Scholar
ROBERTS, BRYAN R., FRANK, REANNE, and LOZANO-ASENCIO, FERNANDO 1999 Transnational Migrant Communities and Mexican Migration to the United States. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (March): 23866.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ROBERTS, KENNETH 2002 Social Inequalities without Class Cleavages in Latin America's Neoliberal Era. Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (Winter): 333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ROBINSON, WILLIAM 1996 Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SULLIVAN, MERCER L. 1989 Getting Paid: Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
SUNKEL, OSVALDO 2001 The Unbearable Lightness of Neoliberalism. Paper Presented at the Conference on Latin American Sociology. University of Florida, Gainesville, April.Google Scholar
TOKMAN, VICTOR 1982 Unequal Development and the Absorption of Labour: Latin America 19501980. CEPAL Review 17: 12133.Google Scholar
TOKMAN, VICTOR 1987 El sector informal: quince aos despus. El Trimestre Econmico 54 (3), July-September: 51336.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS 1995-2000 Current Population Surveys. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS 2000a Coming from the Americas: A Profile of the Nation's Latin American Foreign Born. Census Brief. CENBR/00-3, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, Economics and Statistics Administration.Google Scholar
U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS 2000b Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE 1990-1999 Statistical Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
VEBLEN, THORSTEIN [1899] 1998 The Theory of the Leisure Class. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL 1976 Semi-peripheral Countries and the Contemporary World Crisis. Theory and Society 3: 46183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WALLERSTEIN, IMMANUEL 1977 Rural Economy in World Society. Studies in Comparative International Development 12 (Spring): 2940.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WEBER, MAX [1922] 1965 Social Stratification and Class Structure. In Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, edited by Parsons, Talcott, 42429. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
WOLPE, HAROLD 1975 The Theory of Internal Colonialism: The South African Case. In Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and Society in Latin America and Africa, edited by Oxaal, Ivar, Barnett, Tony, and Booth, David, 25279. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
WRIGHT, ERIK O. 1985 Classes. London: Verso.Google Scholar
WRIGHT, ERIK O. 1997 Rethinking Once Again the Concept of Class Structure. In Reworking Class, edited by Hall, John R., 4172. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar