Social precarity in Mexico and Argentina: Trends, manifestations and national trajectories

Abstract

From a multidimensional and dynamic approach, this article focuses on the linkages between labour, unemployment, poverty and inequality, examining the forms which social precarity has adopted in Mexico and Argentina in the new economic environment. It contends that the weakening of employment-based integration mechanisms, marked inequalities in access to opportunities and increasingly rigid social structures are evidence of strong exclusionary trends, which exhibit specific characteristics in each country. After analysing national trajectories and the levels of integration achieved under the importsubstitution industrialization model, the article examines the deterioration of working and living conditions witnessed over the last few decades. It concludes with a discussion of some of the dilemmas and challenges which the transition towards more equitable, socially supportive and inclusive societies poses in terms of research and public policy.