According to ECLAC (2024), the social landscape of Latin America is marked by a development crisis. This crisis is driven by low growth capacity, high inequality with low mobility, weak social cohesion, and low institutional and governance capacity (Salazar-Xirinachs, 2023). These characteristics have become entrenched over the last decade and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the one hand, the region has experienced economic stagnation for approximately a decade, with average growth of only 0,9% between 2015 and 2024, a period comparable to the 1980s (the so-called "lost decade"). On the other hand, the pandemic caused multiple and interconnected effects on Latin American societies, highlighting significant socioeconomic inequalities, inequities in access to and quality of goods and services (particularly health, housing, and care), and the serious structural problems of our societies.

Latin America and the Caribbean have historically been characterized by the formation of welfare states with limited capacity to universalize protection systems due to fiscal weaknesses and structural duality or heterogeneity: high levels of informal employment, segmentation of protection systems, and persistent inequalities between classes, territories, genders, generations, and ethnic-racial groups (Mesa-Lago, 1978; Wood and Gough, 2006). The health crisis caused by COVID-19 made the limitations of these welfare “agreements” (Valencia Lomelí, 2023) even more visible.

The pandemic increased poverty and inequality, concentrating its impacts in low-income neighborhoods and the informal sector (Ziccardi, 2020; 2021; 2022; Di Virgílio and Perelman, 2023), strained health systems (Barba Solano, 2023 and 2023a; Valencia and Jaramillo, 2024), and exposed the vulnerabilities of social protection systems in the face of massive and prolonged shocks (ECLAC, 2025). While countries provided “extraordinary” responses during the pandemic, such as emergency income transfer programs, increased school feeding programs, and employment and care support programs, the post-pandemic era has seen the dismantling of these policies, especially in countries governed by “austerity coalitions.” Thus, there is a trend towards the reconfiguration and, in many cases, the dismantling of social policies built during the first decades of the 21st century, as well as attempts to recenter the social issue in the paradigm of individual responsibility and the "entrepreneurship" of people in poverty (Gaitán, 2025).

National sociopolitical dynamics and the rightward shifts of Latin American governments, with exceptions such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, are concomitant with and influenced by cross-cutting processes that affect countries of the Global South unevenly: the climate crisis and extractive models, forced migrations, the digitalization of work and daily life, automation, and the financialization of the economy, promoting new forms of exclusion and automated discrimination. This new scenario appears to have the potential to dismantle the rights established during the cycle of progressive governments. While the "leftward shift" In the region, this meant an expansion of income transfer policies, labor re-regulation and broader coverage; however, these advances do not appear to have undermined regressive distributive pacts or the heterogeneous productive structure that continues to reproduce deep social gaps (Barba Solano, 2023a; 2023b; 2025a; 2025b; ECLAC, 2025).

Historically, the region has experienced pendulum swings between right and left, although in the current context, under the influence of the United States, the contrasts between countries and the orientation of their social policies appear to have intensified. While Mexico is experiencing an expansionary cycle in social policies (mainly through a variety of unconditional cash transfer programs and non-contributory pensions), Argentina, on the contrary, is experiencing a period of setbacks and limitations on rights under the government of Javier Milei. This situation poses new challenges in terms of knowledge and understanding of the situation in different countries and regional balances, especially on critical issues such as:

The crisis of work, structural informality and new forms of precarity (uberization, gig economy, etc.).

The continuity of the problems (residential segregation, territorial inequality, post-Covid-19 health, etc.).

The stratification of protection and/or welfare systems.

The natural risks generated by climate change, which mainly affect the popular sectors, contribute to the persistence of poverty and put welfare systems in crisis.

Changes in perceptions about poverty and new forms of social legitimation.

The redefinition of the role of subnational governments in the management of social policies and intergovernmental relations, and the consolidation of processes of fragmentation of state capacities to universalize welfare.

The Working Group takes a critical stance toward this situation, proposing a comparative, interdisciplinary, intersectional, and decolonizing approach to the contemporary transformations of social issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. This approach draws on and incorporates findings produced over its more than 25 years of existence, and in particular, from the last two periods (2019–2022 and 2023–2025).

The region has historically operated under social welfare states with limited technical, bureaucratic, political, and financial capacities to universally recognize rights for all populations. Phenomena such as structural vulnerability, productive and territorial heterogeneity, fragmented welfare systems, and their heterogeneous implementation depending on the level or scale of government, etc., contribute to this.

Progressive cycles expanded protection, but without modifying the structural bases of inequality.

The importance of the ideational question. Since the mid-2010s and especially in the 2020s, democratic setbacks, disputes over the role of the State, and neoliberal offensives focused on reducing social spending, commodification, and regressive austerity have emerged.

The heterogeneity in the region reinvigorates the old cleavage of universalism-focusing, commodification-decommodification, logic of rights-logic of benefits.

The pandemic highlighted massive vulnerabilities and, simultaneously, strengthened new agendas (care, basic income, public health, multilevel coordination, social information systems).

Thus, it is possible to observe that Latin America and the Caribbean are undergoing a profound reconfiguration of social issues and welfare systems. Not only do historical inequalities persist based on class, territory, gender, race/skin color, and generation/age, but in some national contexts, these inequalities are intensifying. Furthermore, while the literature links democracy and redistribution (Huber and Stephens, 2012; Korpi, 2006; Satyro et al., 2021), this imperative appears to be challenged by the rise of authoritarian forces that combine economic neoliberalism with the erosion of rights.

Thus, based on the historical production of the GT and assuming the new intellectual challenges posed by the current context, the group proposes itself as a space for: 1. production of critical knowledge, 2. training of new generations of researchers, and 3. public influence and articulation with social actors.

The study of poverty, inequalities and social protection in Latin America and the Caribbean has generated a robust corpus that engages with welfare regime approaches (Barba Solano, 2023a; 2023b; Martínez-Franzoni, 2007), theories of structural heterogeneity and dependency (Pinto, 1976), feminist and care economy perspectives (Batthyány, 2020), and critical readings on exclusion, marginality and new forms of vulnerability (Martínez Franzoni, 2007; Midaglia, Villarespe and Ziccardi, 2013; Barba Solano, 2025a; 2025b).

In recent decades, the study of poverty and inequality in Latin America has been heavily influenced by the persistent effects of neoliberal economic policies, which reshaped social protection systems and consolidated processes of structural vulnerability and institutional segmentation (Mesa-Lago; Barba Solano, 2025a; 2025b). Social research has focused on understanding the multidimensionality of poverty and developing methodological tools for its measurement and monitoring, as well as analyzing the scope and limitations of conditional cash transfer programs, which expanded regionally, with varying results between rural and urban contexts (Midaglia, Villarespe, and Ziccardi, 2013). Several urban studies have shown that, when moved to cities, these programs have shown little effectiveness in addressing forms of asset poverty, indebtedness, and unequal access to land and housing, in a context of housing policies increasingly oriented by financial criteria (Ziccardi, 2020; 2022).

At the same time, the region experienced a progressive financialization of daily life, in which households and communities increasingly depend on credit, debt, and private mechanisms to access essential goods and services such as housing, health, and education (Lavinas, Araújo, and Rubin, 2024), deepening existing inequalities and shifting risks onto families (Huber and Stephens, 2012; Paura, 2023). These dynamics are intertwined with new forms of precarious employment, structural informality, forced migration, climate crisis, and urban violence, shaping complex scenarios in which territorial, gender, ethnic-racial, and generational gaps persist and worsen (Valencia Lomelí, 2024).

The COVID-19 pandemic constituted a turning point, revealing the fragility of protection and welfare systems and exposing the magnitude of inequalities in access to public services, living conditions, and institutional response capacities (Barba Solano, Ordóñez, and Silva, 2020; Ziccardi, 2020). It was a global and predominantly urban phenomenon (Bringel and Pleyers, 2020): 90% of infections were concentrated in cities, disproportionately affecting populations residing in densely populated, overcrowded, and low-income neighborhoods with limited access to basic infrastructure (Ziccardi, 2022). The health crisis brought to light unfulfilled rights and highlighted the need to strengthen distributive coalitions, increase social investment, and move toward comprehensive care systems (Batthyány, 2020), as well as to rebuild the "edifice of protection and welfare." regional (Martínez Franzoni and Sánchez-Ancochea, 2022).

Studying poverty has central theoretical relevance because it allows us to understand the economic, social, and political structures that produce and reproduce inequality. Poverty goes beyond material deprivation, expressing a relational and structural phenomenon that reflects the distribution of power, assets, and resources in society. Analyzing it involves questioning the limits of capitalist development, the forms of citizenship recognition, and the meanings of well-being. Considering the theoretical relevance of studying the living conditions of individuals and families in Latin America, the work developed by the Working Group during its 25 years of existence has consolidated a substantial contribution to Latin American academic thought on poverty, inequality, and social protection. This is evidenced by the extensive collective and individual output of its members, the growing number of academic citations, and the recurring references to its approaches in regional debates on welfare regimes, structural heterogeneity, and urban policies. Researchers within the Working Group have strengthened the theoretical and comparative discussion on cash transfers, health systems, care, housing, and urban inequalities, contributing to the conceptual development of notions such as structural vulnerability, conservative modernization, the financialization of everyday life, and hybrid models of social protection in the region. This output has resulted in edited volumes, dossiers, peer-reviewed articles, and teaching materials used in postgraduate programs at Latin American and European universities, expanding the Working Group's academic impact.

Furthermore, the Working Group has made direct contributions to academia by training new generations of researchers through hybrid international seminars, thematic schools, comparative projects, and mentoring programs that have brought together young people from UNAM, UBA, UdeG, Udelar, COLEF, FLACSO, UNQ, and other institutions. The active participation of its members has strengthened the transmission of methodological and analytical tools, contributing to the renewal of research agendas and the consolidation of regional academic networks.

Finally, the Working Group has had a significant impact on governments and social organizations during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborating with entities such as ECLAC, CONEVAL, local governments (particularly in Mexico, Uruguay, and Argentina), and social organizations such as UPREZ (Emiliano Zapata Popular Revolutionary Union), MOI (Movement of Occupants and Tenants), HIC-AL (International Coalition for Habitat - Latin America), MUP (Popular Urban Movement), and Oxfam Mexico. This collaboration has involved providing advice, developing assessments, participating in legislative processes, public outreach, and coordinating social response strategies. Group members have contributed to the design and evaluation of emergency policies, care systems, income programs, and urban policies, reinforcing the Working Group's role as a key player in public debate and in the formulation of inclusive social policies in the post-pandemic period.

Furthermore, the Working Group's academic impact is evident in the widespread circulation and citation of its members' work. According to academic citation data, the Working Group members have a body of widely cited and recognized academic output in the field, with notable authors including Rolando Cordera Campos, Alicia Ziccardi, Alicia Puyana, María del Carmen Midaglia, Carlos Barba Solano, María Mercedes Di Virgilio, and Enrique Valencia Lomelí. Collectively, the members' work has garnered over 40,000 citations, demonstrating a verifiable and sustained academic impact that positions the Working Group as a regional leader in the study of poverty, inequality, and social policies in Latin America.

The Working Group thus proposes to continue the research carried out, focusing the investigations on three analytical axes: 1. Changes in the economic structure and employment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2. Impacts of organizational and technological transformations on the living conditions of people and families, 3. Changes and continuities in the forms of public intervention that impact living conditions: social and labor policies.