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Has Social Policy Expansion in Latin America Reduced Welfare Decommodification and Defamilialisation? Evidence from an Overview of the Mexican Welfare Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2020

Ricardo Velázquez Leyer
Ricardo Velázquez Leyer*
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Political Sciences, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico E-mail: ricardo.velazquez@ibero.mx
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Abstract

Mexican social policy has been transformed in recent years with the introduction and expansion of social assistance programmes, causing a diversion from the trajectory based on social insurance since the first decades of the twentieth century. This article aims to understand the outcomes of that transformation, by applying welfare regime theory to establish how social policy reforms have affected the distribution of welfare responsibilities among the state, markets and families. The research identifies (de)commodification and (de)familialisation outcomes of policy changes in pensions, healthcare, unemployment and family support. Results suggest that the expansion has not produced significant reductions in decommodification or defamilialisation because of: a) the explicit or implicit role assigned to markets in policy design and implementation, and b) the reliance of the process of economic liberalisation on the welfare role performed by families. The case of Mexico may illustrate the current welfare challenges faced by societies across Latin America.

Keywords

MexicoLatin Americawelfare regimedecommodificationdefamilialisation
Type
Themed Section: Global Welfare Regimes Revisited
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 645 - 659
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2020

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