Global Restructuring, Employment, and Social Inequality in Urban Latin America

Despite new opportunities arising from transformations in the global economic and political arenas in the 1990s, Latin American states have become more vulnerable to transnational capital movements and market shifts. Without the implementation of vigorous, innovative policies to promote social equality and upgrade national infrastructures, economic growth will yield widening inequalities both within and between nations.

This volume's multidisciplinary cast of authors uses a comparative framework to explore the implications of global transformations and national development policies for urban employment and social inequality in Latin America. Using the cases of Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina, the authors examine socioeconomic change in labor markets, including issues of privatization, industry and export transformations, growth of precarious and informal employment, gender realignments, and territorial reorganization.