This study combines survey data with annual state data on pupil-teacher ratios covering broadly the period 1940-90 to investigate the role of race, family background and education (both the quantity and quality) in explaining earnings inequality between whites and the African descendent...

This book examines poverty as a structural problem caused by the way economic systems operate. It poses a simple question: Why do poor people earn less? Case studies in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru find the poor caught in a vicious circle. They lack sufficient access to...

This book examines poverty as a structural problem caused by the way economic systems operate. It poses a simple question: Why do poor people earn less? Case studies in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru find the poor caught in a vicious circle. They lack sufficient access to...

This study examines unemployment insurance (UI) for its potential application and implications for Latin American and the Caribbean economies. It surveys current experience with unemployment insurance programs through case studies and draws lessons learned in particular for the Latin American...

This report examines evidence from post-Mitch Central America and disasters in other parts of the world to identify the ways disasters affect women and to highlight women's participation in prevention, relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts. This report is based on background papers...

Does early childbearing restrict women's social and economic opportunities? These questions are explored by examining the effects, first on marital status and family formation, and second on women's employment options, earnings and poverty condition. The four studies presented here (from Chile,...

This article discusses the plight of poor women around the world and the feminization of poverty. The evidence is imperfect, but current trends suggest that women account for a growing proportion of those people who are considered poor on the basis of income, not only in industrial countries,...

This paper analyzes the evolution of gender differences in school attendance and attainment in Latin America and the Caribbean, for both adults who left the educational system and children in school. For individuals 21 years old and above the paper uses a cohort analysis of school attainment....

Early Childhood Interventions (ECI) are ideally designed to achieve a series of mutually reinforcing objectives with the overarching goal of helping to improve equality of opportunity for children in poverty. In this discussion the authors analize programs targeted to overcome some or all of the...