This paper examines the interaction between social welfare policies and the “population problem” in Latin America. It demonstrates that social security programs, by reinforcing highly unequal patterns of stratification, have had a largely negative effect on population issues in the region. Social security policy in turn is analyzed as a particular political adaptation to the realities of dependent capitalist development. As a result, the population problem in Latin America is viewed less as a product of mindless demographic forces than as a politically induced reality stemming from the accumulated impact and negative consequences of a variety of consciously formulated public policies.
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