Conference Agenda

The economy of the countries of the Latin American region has been characterised in recent years by a complex macroeconomic scenario, marked by a stable informality around 50% and an unemployment rate that, between 2010 and 2019, was close to 7%.

These difficulties have been made more visible and extreme by the current health crisis and will have long-term repercussions for the various countries in the region. In this context, several political, economic and social efforts emerged to address these problems that may have been thought to be on the way to being overcome, or at least have not been so visible. In other words, the pandemic has set the scene for a policy laboratory at different levels and scales.

The aim of this research was to systematise the experiences of public policies that, in the context of the pandemic, have been promoted and implemented by public bodies in Latin American countries to ensure access to social protection for the informal or unemployed working population. It sought to answer the following research question: What was the response of the social protection systems in the Latin American region to improve access for the informal or unemployed population in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how did this response make it possible to analyse the situation of generalised crisis in terms of social protection in the region?

In terms of methodology, an Integrated Multiple Case Study (Yin, 2009) was carried out, in which a set of 10 experiences or public policies from countries in the Latin American region were analysed in terms of their origin, design, results and evaluation. This, together with data on the context of the different countries in terms of social protection, health and labour market systems (informality and unemployment). From a general perspective, case studies are relevant for "contrasting theories, creating theories, identifying antecedent conditions, verifying the importance of these antecedent conditions and explaining cases of intrinsic importance" (Van Evera, 2002: 65).

The analysis of the different experiences was consolidated following the methodology of comparative analysis based on a series of previously defined variables.

This research allows, first, to identify experiences at the regional level with the possibility of scaling up or replicability to other similar contexts and, second, it provides the opportunity to comparatively analyse the lack of protection and gaps in social protection for the informal or unemployed population in the region.

The multiple shocks to the global economy, including war in Europe, COVID-19, the great recession and austerity, have undermined decent work and universal social protection transnationally, but with varied effects on different places and people. As rising energy and food prices affect the cost of living and impact households within and between countries unevenly, crises unfold following decades of neoliberalisation. In Europe, the paradigm of social protection shifted away from seeing markets as a problem (tackled through equality-enhancing redistribution) to positing markets as a solution (enabling workers through competitiveness). Simultaneously, globalisation has shaped European Union policy framework to promote a transnationalisation of work and, less so, social protection policies. How do the multiple crises affect transnational social reproduction via labour mobility? With what implications for social protection systems? The case of Poland and Ukraine – countries that have undergone post-communist transformations through ‘shock therapy’, soaring unemployment, diminished social protection, mass out-migration, and Russia’s war against Ukraine – demonstrates the scale and scope of the crises and the need for multifaceted policy responses. We present a case study of Polish and Ukrainian migrant workers in Germany, Poland and the UK employed in care, food and housing sectors – domains critical to the reproduction of societies, all of which have experienced state retrenchment and market expansion, and are paradigmatic of a social reproduction crisis. Using an extended case methodology, we combine in-depth interviews with migrant workers and secondary data analysis of labour market, sector and policy developments, and consider the implications of interlinked crises on work and social protection. Through the prism of social reproduction provisioning, which entails a balance of market, state and household sources of welfare, we highlight how a flourishing social reproduction is incompatible with market-reach, since state retrenchment depletes households, while encroaching markets intensify labour, widen poor labour practices and lower labour’s rewards. We show how, despite EU migrant workers’ privileged access to the current ‘gold-standard’ transnational social protection offered by the EU’s freedom of movement framework, welfare remains centred on individualised paid-work logic, leaving many needs unmet and work and workers excluded. The war-related pressure to redirect fiscal flows from social protection towards military spending to secure peace, presents an added threat of disconnecting human security from social protection. We conclude with implications of these aggravated pressures, including the role of labour market actors and institutions in mainstreaming social objectives in labour market and macroeconomic policies transnationally.

While the public health effects of the Covid pandemic have begun to recede, the socio-economic effects persist, particularly in the global South, where countries have had to deal with challenges such as rising public debt, persistent and growing levels of unemployment, rising food prices, rising inflation and severe macro-stability issues. The experiences of countries in the global South has received very limited analytical analysis. In order to consider the design and efficacy of macroeconomic policy, and social protection responses to these crises, it is essential that our analysis is based on a careful appraisal of the macro- and socio-economic situation in the global South. In this paper we take a comparative view, from the perspective of South Africa. Placing the South African situation in some comparative perspective by comparing South Africa to six other global South economies - Botswana, Brazil, China, India, Turkey, Malaysia - we examine the following questions: Firstly, what was the state of the economy in March 2019 and again in the post-pandemic period? We examine the general growth impacts, and fiscal policy responses implemented to counteract the economic fallout of the pandemic. We review the employment effects, both of the pandemic and the recovery, and examine social effects on health and learning. We evaluate the efficacy of the economic policy measures introduced to address the multiple crises, and asses the implications for the design of social policy. We then turn to focus on the growth and development challenges facing the country, including high unemployment and inequality, growing poverty, and the climate crisis. We conclude by arguing for the central role of social policy in addressing these intersecting crises, and ensuring a sustainable and inclusive economic recovery in the coming decade.

The Italian economy is characterised by several structural problems that have become particularly acute after the Great Crisis of 2008 and during the pandemic crisis of 2020. The main symptoms of Italy’s economic system difficulties are the long-term stagnation of real wages and the slow upswing of employment. Since 2020, Italy, which had not yet reabsorbed all the consequences of the 2008 crisis, went back under pressure due to the COVID-19 crisis and, afterwards, to the cost-of-living increase.

Taking into account the weak Italian economic framework, we questioned what were the impacts of the Italian macroeconomic policies on wages and labour market during and after the pandemic crisis (2020-2022).

On this basis, we analysed the wages and the labour market trends by processing official data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Statistical Office of the European Union (EUROSTAT), the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) and the Italian National Institute for Social Security (INPS). In particular, we focused on payroll mass (average annual wages in the whole economy and in the private sector), on the structure of employment (professional status, occupation, working hours), on inflation rate and on wages from the National Collective Bargaining Agreements (NCBAs).

This study shows that, during the pandemic crisis, the decrease in the average gross annual wage observed in 2020 was more than halved by the intervention of the job retention scheme, and that the substantial stability of employment was guaranteed by the freeze on layoffs. After the emergency phase, however, the Italian recovery experienced similar dynamics to the ones from previous crisis. Indeed, we show that, despite a strong post-pandemic economic growth, Italy average wages are currently lower than in 2019, and the country is experiencing an increase of non-standard jobs and of the substantial unemployment area. Moreover, the recent strong increase in the inflation rate, associated to the long time lag to renew the NCBAs, are reducing the wages purchasing power. All these elements show the need and urgency to address the decent work agenda through the “full and good employment” strategy, which is a pro-employment macroeconomic policy based on wage growth and the creation of higher quality employment. This strategy can be implemented through four actions: (i) faster NCBAs’ renewal; (ii) reduction of fixed-term employment contracts; (iii) active role of the State in the economy; (iv) extension of social safety net programs.