“The pandemic exposes shortcomings and problems that predate it.”

Itai Hagman, Argentine National Deputy and Director of the Observatory of Economics and Public Policies, participated in the second meeting of the Cycle of virtual conversations on Social Security and Pension System organized by CLACSO, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, IADE and the CLACSO Working Group on Social Security and Pension Systems.

Interviewed by Gustavo Lema

For Itai Hagman, “the pandemic, like any major crisis, exposes and lays bare pre-existing shortcomings and problems. And in this case, I believe that throughout the world—not just in Latin America—the issue of inequality, which has become extreme over the last few decades, the enormous concentration of wealth, the exclusion of a significant sector of the population from the labor market, all these issues are obviously brought to the forefront when, due to an entirely unpredictable factor, the economy grinds to a halt. And I think this should make us think not only about the short term, how we contain this decline, how we prevent this pandemic from causing damage to a very large sector of the population that will take us a long time to repair, but also about which elements of that 'previous normality' we need to question. Is this level of inequality, of fragmentation of the labor market, of concentration of wealth tolerable, acceptable? Is it acceptable, or do we need to consider policies that change this? I think it's a tremendous opportunity to discuss these issues.” things in Argentina that, moreover, I believe will be discussed throughout the region and probably globally.”

The other panelists at the second meeting of the series were:

Pablo Yanes Rizo, Research Coordinator at the ECLAC subregional headquarters in Mexico.

Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, CONICET Researcher – Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Public Policies.

Agustín Salvia, Social Debt Observatory of the Catholic University of Argentina – Co-coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group on Structural Heterogeneity and Social Inequality.

Laura Pautassi, CONICET Researcher – Faculty of Law, University of Buenos Aires. Director of the Interdisciplinary Group on Social Rights and Public Policies.