Poverty in Latin America: An Examination of the Evidence

Oscar Altimir
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Oscar Altimir: Un Economic Commission for Latin America

Chapter 16 in Human Resources, Employment and Development, 1983, pp 279-298 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Any assessment of the magnitude of poverty must recognise a series of conceptual and methodological limitations. The fact that the concept of poverty has no precise position in any significant body of theory forces recognition that it is an essentially normative notion. Standards respecting basic needs and what levels of satisfaction are adequate, allowing discrimination between who is and who is not to be considered poor in a certain society at a certain time, are intimately linked to some value system of which the policies selected to combat poverty and the assessment about their viability also form a part. In the final analysis these value systems rest upon some moral and political evaluation of the existing social order and the way in which society should be organised. Actually, there is no neutral definition of poverty in this respect.

Keywords: Income Distribution; Life Style; Poverty Line; Latin American Country; Total Income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1983
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-17214-6_16

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