Friday, December 27, 2013

Argentina's Poverty

Over a quarter (10 million)  of the Argentine’s 40 million  population live in poverty conditions, with no formal job, poor quality education, dreadful housing and insufficient healthcare, according to the latest paper from the Buenos Aires Catholic University Social Debt Observatory.

 Three million people are mal nourished, and one in ten houses does not have running water and three out of ten is not connected to sewage network.

Half of Argentine workers have a precarious job or 'indigence jobs' (i.e. collecting cardboard and paper) and over half of the upcoming adult generations is excluded from the social security system.

37% of young adults has not finished high school and 20% are the 'ni-ni' category of 'no job, no school'; 12% of children aged 5 to 17 are involved in some kind of job and two out of ten need government assistance, with 23.5% needing a program of standing social assistance.

“Structural marginality did not improve in Argentine despite all the years Argentina expanded at 8% annually. Structural poverty has crystallized as has the impossibility of achieving basic levels of social integration and well-being”, according to Agustin Salvia head of the Observatory research. “Most of the social conflicts have to do with inequality and unsatisfied expectations. Crime, robbery, looting are part of a social decomposition context for people who believe the system does not include them and the distance with the well-off is ever widening”.


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