Inequalities and families

Inequalities and families: an interdisciplinary perspective

Committee on Family Research, RC06, ISA

Mexico City

29, 30 November and 1 December 2017

Latin America remains the most unequal region in the world. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), by 2014, the richest 10% of the population in Latin America had concentrated 71% of the wealth of the region. Women and children, young and older, ethnic communities suffer the most unequal distribution of wealth in the region. Inequalities are always in plural, as there are inequalities in access to education, inequalities in access to health services, gender inequalities, intergenerational inequalities, work inequalities based on different conditions and access to labour, inequalities of living standards, inequalities on access to cultural activities, inequalities based on colour of skin, among others.

Inequalities create disadvantaged that accumulate from generation to generation, from past to the present. They reproduce and remain in spite of government and non-government actions and policies. Are we doomed for living in inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean? That is the question which brings researchers on family issues to Mexico City to rethink and take actions on inequalities. Particularly, the Committee on Family Research must confront these issues and create analytical framework of understanding global issues. Rethinking inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean will contribute to achieve understandings of inequalities in Asia, Africa, North America and Europe, and vice versa. We share the same global problems: social exclusions, unsustainable development, climate change, the ambivalent role of technology in our lives, and negative effects of economic system.

Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC clearly stressed: “equality is the goal”. Let our meeting in Mexico City create the path of structural change in theory and practice on inequalities and families.

ISA RC06 Local Organizing Committee

UNAM Mexico City