Vulnerabilidad social: Su persistencia en las ciudades de América Latina, de Rubén Kaztman

Summary

This book compiles some of Ruben Kaztman's work on poverty, vulnerability, and residential and social segregation in Latin America. It shows the art and method of building theory from empirical social research and an immense creativity to measure complex concepts. The Asset, Vulnerability and the Structure of Opportunities framework is a powerful way of approaching a changing social structure, recognizing the heterogeneity of its social groups, and understanding it in its complexity, beyond the labor market (looking also at State and Community). Nested in this framework are the works on the relevance of heterogeneity of the school and the neighborhood for social mobility which, recognizing the priority of major structural explanations, such as deindustrialization and economic inequality, emphasize the role of causal mechanisms such as social capital (e.g., role models, networks’ resources and exchanges, peer effects) or the existence of shared norms that guide behavior. This book is crucial to understand the deep social fragmentation of our Latin American societies, beyond fluctuations in the levels of income inequality, as well as variations within our region. But its contribution goes beyond the region and expands to the complex theoretical relationship between inequality and social integration.