A better policy framework for preventing, managing, and helping people recover from crises is crucial to lifting long-term growth and livelihoods in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The need for this policy framework has never been more urgent as the region faces the monumental task of recovery from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Whether specific policy responses will deliver the expected growth dividends will depend on the underlying vision of how labor markets adjust to crises and the quality of the policies enacted. This report estimates how crises change labor market flows, assesses how these changes affect people, and discusses the key policy responses. The key findings are threefold. First, crises have significant impacts on employment dynamics and structure in Latin America. Different labor market dynamics hide behind similar reductions in labor demand. Crises increase unemployment. This is the principal margin of adjustment despite highly informal labor markets. Across the region, the biggest employment losses are in the formal sector, driven by a reduction in job-finding rates rather than higher job-loss rates. Adjustment through reduction in hours worked does not seem to be an important factor in most countries' formal or informal sectors. Crises do not just shape worker flows temporarily-they have significant after-crisis effects on the structure of employment that last for several years. These effects are such that good job opportunities are gradually shrinking. Whereas in some countries the whole economy shrinks, in others informality serves as a partial buffer. Second, crises leave scars. Some workers recover from displacement and other livelihood shocks, while others are permanently scarred. For lower-skilled workers, earnings losses are persistent. Workers with higher education suffer no impacts of the crisis on their wages and very short-lived impacts on their employment. The responses are similar across male and female workers and workers with high and low previous participation in the formal labor market. New entrants to the labor market during a crisis face a worse career start - one from which it is difficult to recover. Yet, crises also bring efficiency gains, as detailed in this report. This study finds that both the structure of product markets and the conditions in local labor markets matter for the severity of crisis-induced employment and earnings losses across localities and sectors. Workers in more protected sectors that enjoy rents are sheltered from adjustment, while workers in localities with more informality cope better. This suggests the need for integrated responses at the worker, sector, and locality levels. Third, this study considers how the region's policy frameworks can more effectively respond to crises-mitigating scarring, speeding adjustment, and promoting long-term growth. It proposes a three-pronged strategy, including (i) creating a more stable macroeconomic environment at the aggregate level to smooth the impacts of crises, including "automatic stabilizers" such as countercyclical, publicly-financed income support that is lacking in LAC; (ii) increasing the capacity of social protection and labor policies to provide income support as well prepare workers for change through reemployment assistance; and (iii) tackling structural issues, including addressing product market competition, contestability issues, and the spatial dimension behind poor labor market adjustment.

A better policy framework for preventing, managing, and helping people recover from crises is crucial to lifting long-term growth and livelihoods in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The need for this policy framework has never been more urgent as the region faces the monumental task of recovery from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Whether specific policy responses will deliver the expected growth dividends will depend on the underlying vision of how labor markets adjust to crises and the quality of the policies enacted. This report estimates how crises change labor market flows, assesses how these changes affect people, and discusses the key policy responses.The key findings are threefold. First, crises have significant impacts on employment dynamics and structure in Latin America. Different labor market dynamics hide behind similar reductions in labor demand. Crises increase unemployment. This is the principal margin of adjustment despite highly informal labor markets. Across the region, the biggest employment losses are in the formal sector, driven by a reduction in job-finding rates rather than higher job-loss rates. Adjustment through reduction in hours worked does not seem to be an important factor in most countries' formal or informal sectors. Crises do not just shape worker flows temporarily-they have significant after-crisis effects on the structure of employment that last for several years. These effects are such that good job opportunities are gradually shrinking. Whereas in some countries the whole economy shrinks, in others informality serves as a partial buffer.Second, crises leave scars. Some workers recover from displacement and other livelihood shocks, while others are permanently scarred. For lower-skilled workers, earnings losses are persistent. Workers with higher education suffer no impacts of the crisis on their wages and very short-lived impacts on their employment. The responses are similar across male and female workers and workers with high and low previous participation in the formal labor market. New entrants to the labor market during a crisis face a worse career start - one from which it is difficult to recover. Yet, crises also bring efficiency gains, as detailed in this report.This study finds that both the structure of product markets and the conditions in local labor markets matter for the severity of crisis-induced employment and earnings losses across localities and sectors. Workers in more protected sectors that enjoy rents are sheltered from adjustment, while workers in localities with more informality cope better. This suggests the need for integrated responses at the worker, sector, and locality levels.Third, this study considers how the region's policy frameworks can more effectively respond to crises-mitigating scarring, speeding adjustment, and promoting long-term growth. It proposes a three-pronged strategy, including (i) creating a more stable macroeconomic environment at the aggregate level to smooth the impacts of crises, including "automatic stabilizers" such as countercyclical, publicly-financed income support that is lacking in LAC; (ii) increasing the capacity of social protection and labor policies to provide income support as well prepare workers for change through reemployment assistance; and (iii) tackling structural issues, including addressing product market competition, contestability issues, and the spatial dimension behind poor labor market adjustment.

This book aims to help provide an understanding of the relationship between the elderly generation and the multigenerational families they belong to through an analysis of family and individual development in later life and a study of the structural and functional complexion of the multigenerational family (the basic unit of analysis). The increase of life expectancy and the consequent later ageing of the population is making Western families undergo considerable changes. The demographic ageing of societies is increasing the number of living generations and decreasing the number of living relatives within these generations. These ageing societies are also seeing a changing of some traditional life-transitions, such as individuals delaying economic independence from parents, marriage or long-term cohabitation, as well as parenting. Themes discussed in this book are: 1. multigenerational families are now commonplace in the western countries; 2. legacies and inheritance are an important theme for the integrity of families in later lives (since the increase of welfare-states, the economic importance of inheritance decreases); 3. a substantial proportion of elderly persons and their families live in poverty, having to deal with the diminishing of their sensorial and physical capacities, as well as lower income and higher medical expenses; 4. families have to combine the care-giving of elderly relatives with the care-taking of their own children and a professional career; 5. counselling becomes an important factor for older adults since many families issue then arise.

A better policy framework for preventing, managing, and helping people recover from crises is crucial to lifting long-term growth and livelihoods in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The need for this policy framework has never been more urgent as the region faces the monumental task of recovery from the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Whether specific policy responses will deliver the expected growth dividends will depend on the underlying vision of how labor markets adjust to crises and the quality of the policies enacted. This report estimates how crises change labor market flows, assesses how these changes affect people, and discusses the key policy responses.The key findings are threefold. First, crises have significant impacts on employment dynamics and structure in Latin America. Different labor market dynamics hide behind similar reductions in labor demand. Crises increase unemployment. This is the principal margin of adjustment despite highly informal labor markets. Across the region, the biggest employment losses are in the formal sector, driven by a reduction in job-finding rates rather than higher job-loss rates. Adjustment through reduction in hours worked does not seem to be an important factor in most countries' formal or informal sectors. Crises do not just shape worker flows temporarily-they have significant after-crisis effects on the structure of employment that last for several years. These effects are such that good job opportunities are gradually shrinking. Whereas in some countries the whole economy shrinks, in others informality serves as a partial buffer.Second, crises leave scars. Some workers recover from displacement and other livelihood shocks, while others are permanently scarred. For lower-skilled workers, earnings losses are persistent. Workers with higher education suffer no impacts of the crisis on their wages and very short-lived impacts on their employment. The responses are similar across male and female workers and workers with high and low previous participation in the formal labor market. New entrants to the labor market during a crisis face a worse career start - one from which it is difficult to recover. Yet, crises also bring efficiency gains, as detailed in this report.This study finds that both the structure of product markets and the conditions in local labor markets matter for the severity of crisis-induced employment and earnings losses across localities and sectors. Workers in more protected sectors that enjoy rents are sheltered from adjustment, while workers in localities with more informality cope better. This suggests the need for integrated responses at the worker, sector, and locality levels.Third, this study considers how the region's policy frameworks can more effectively respond to crises-mitigating scarring, speeding adjustment, and promoting long-term growth. It proposes a three-pronged strategy, including (i) creating a more stable macroeconomic environment at the aggregate level to smooth the impacts of crises, including "automatic stabilizers" such as countercyclical, publicly-financed income support that is lacking in LAC; (ii) increasing the capacity of social protection and labor policies to provide income support as well prepare workers for change through reemployment assistance; and (iii) tackling structural issues, including addressing product market competition, contestability issues, and the spatial dimension behind poor labor market adjustment.