Social Inclusion THE
INDEX
CHARTICLE
HOW THE COUNTRIES RANK
We scored each of the 11 countries relatively for all 15 indicators (Inputs and Outputs), giving each country a score of 1–11 and then converting the totals into a 0– 100 scale. All variables were
weighted equally. Below is how each country ranks relative to the others in those totals. To the right below we show how the countries ranked in each of the 15 variables (or, in the case of the
U. S., in the 7 variables for which we had data). It is within the individual variables that some real surprises occur: Chile lands at 10 in civil society participation, and Bolivia scores well in the
areas in which Chile scored poorly—civil society participation and government responsiveness. The latter should give hope for the future, the former perhaps some concern about the need
for political renovation in Chile. (For how we calculated the variables and the rankings visit www.americasquarterly.org/social-inclusion-index.)
RELATIVE RANKING
ON 15 VARIABLES
That Chile and Uruguay rank the
highest in social inclusion is no
surprise. The ranking, however,
obscures the differences among
the countries. Despite coming in
third, Brazil’s aggregate score
of 51. 4 is far below Chile’s ( 71. 9)
and Uruguay’s ( 71. 2). Ecuador,
in fourth place, was boosted by
above-average scores in GDP
growth and secondary-school
enrollment, though, as mentioned
earlier, the latter numbers have
been questioned. Mexico’s
appearance in the middle of
the pack is consistent with its
performance across the variables,
with one important exception—
living on more than $4 per day,
which is high even taking into
account gender and race.
overall score
BOLIVIA
TK
INPUTS
RANKING BY OTHER VARIABLES Variable by variable, this is how the countries stacked up.
One methodological note: for the indicators secondary-school enrollment, daily income, access to adequate housing
and access to a formal job, to take into account countrywide rates and differences by gender and race/ethnicity for
each category, we calculated the differences between male/female and non-minority/minority and then subtracted
those from the overall national percent. The idea was to score countries by their overall performance with penalties for
the differences in access by gender and race/ethnicity. The differences were not weighted by population size, based on
the assumption that differences in the distribution of resources matter regardless of the size of the population.
GDP GROW TH
2001–2010, CONS TAN T
PRICES
GDP SPEN T ON
SOCIAL PROGRAMS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Includes U.S.
PERU
ECUADOR
COLOMBIA
PARAGUAY
BOLIVIA
CHILE
BRAZIL
URUGUAY
GUATEMALA
NICARAGUA
MEXICO
UNI TED STATES
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Includes U.S.
BRAZIL
URUGUAY
BOLIVIA
UNI TED STATES
CHILE
COLOMBIA
MEXICO
NICARAGUA
PARAGUAY
PERU
GUATEMALA
ECUADOR
ENROLLMEN T
SECONDARY SCHOOL
BY GENDER (MALE/
FEMALE)
CHILE 1
ECUADOR 2
PERU 3
URUGUAY 4
BOLIVIA 5
COLOMBIA 6
PARAGUAY 7
MEXICO 8
BRAZIL 9
GUATEMALA 10
NICARAGUA 11
Does not include U.S.
ENROLLMENT IN
SECONDARY SCHOOL
BY RACE (NON-MINORITY/
MINORITY)
CHILE 1
PERU 2
ECUADOR 3
COLOMBIA 4
BRAZIL 5
URUGUAY 6
MEXICO 7
BOLIVIA 8
PARAGUAY 9
NICARAGUA 10
GUATEMALA 11
Does not include U.S.
POLITICAL RIGHTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
Includes U. S.
CHILE
URUGUAY
UNI TED S TATES
BRAZIL
PERU
MEXICO
ECUADOR
PARAGUAY
BOLIVIA 7 COLOMBIA
GUATEMALA 8
NICARAGUA 9
CIVIL RIGHTS
CIVIL SOCIETY
PARTICIPATION
OUTPUTS
LIVING ON MORE
THAN $4 PER DAY BY
GENDER (MALE/FEMALE)
PERSONAL
EMPOWERMENT
1
Chile
2
Uruguay
3
Brazil
4
Ecuador
Peru
5
Colombia
6
Bolivia
Mexico
7
Paraguay
8
Nicaragua
9
Guatemala
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Includes U.S.
CHILE
URUGUAY
UNITED S TATES
BRAZIL
PERU
BOLIVIA
ECUADOR
MEXICO
PARAGUAY
COLOMBIA
8 GUATEMALA
NICARAGUA
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Includes U.S.
BOLIVIA
PARAGUAY
GUATEMALA
PERU
NICARAGUA
MEXICO
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
UNITED STATES
BRAZIL
CHILE
URUGUAY
URUGUAY 1
CHILE 2
MEXICO 3
BRAZIL 4
ECUADOR 5
PERU 6
PARAGUAY 7
COLOMBIA 8
BOLIVIA 9
GUATEMALA 10
NICARAGUA 11
Does not include U.S.
LIVING ON MORE
THAN $4 PER DAY
BY RACE (
NON-MINORITY/MINORITY)
CHILE 1
URUGUAY 2
BRAZIL 3
MEXICO 4
PERU 5
COLOMBIA 6
ECUADOR 7
BOLIVIA 8
PARAGUAY 9
NICARAGUA 10
GUATEMALA 11
Does not include U.S.
UNI TED S TATES 1
URUGUAY 2
NICARAGUA 3
CHILE 4
ECUADOR 5
BOLIVIA 6
GUATEMALA 7 MEXICO
COLOMBIA 8
PERU 9
BRAZIL 10
PARAGUAY 11
Includes U.S.
GOVERNMENT
RESPONSIVENESS
(EFFICACY)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Includes U.S.
URUGUAY
BOLIVIA
CHILE
COLOMBIA
MEXICO
ECUADOR
NICARAGUA
BRAZIL
PERU
PARAGUAY
UNI TED STATES
GUATEMALA
ACCESS TO
ADEQUATE HOUSING
BY GENDER (MALE/
FEMALE)
CHILE 1
URUGUAY 2
BRAZIL 3
MEXICO 4
ECUADOR 5
COLOMBIA 6
PARAGUAY 7
BOLIVIA 8
PERU 9
GUATEMALA 10
NICARAGUA 11
Does not include U.S.
ACCESS TO
ADEQUATE HOUSING
BY RACE (
NON-MINORITY/MINORITY)
URUGUAY 1
BRAZIL 2
CHILE 3
MEXICO 4
ECUADOR 5
COLOMBIA 6
PERU 7
BOLIVIA 8
PARAGUAY 9
GUATEMALA 10
NICARAGUA 11
Does not include U.S.
ACCESS TO A
FORMAL JOB, AGES
25-65 BY GENDER
(MALE/FEMALE)
URUGUAY 1
CHILE 2
BRAZIL 3
COLOMBIA 4
PERU 5
MEXICO 6
ECUADOR 7
GUATEMALA 8
BOLIVIA 9
PARAGUAY 10
NICARAGUA 11
Does not include U.S.
ACCESS TO A
FORMAL JOB, AGES
25-65 B Y RACE (
NON-MINORITY/MINORITY)
URUGUAY 1
CHILE 2
BRAZIL 3
COLOMBIA 4
PERU 5
ECUADOR 6
BOLIVIA 7
MEXICO
NICARAGUA 8
GUATEMALA 9
PARAGUAY 10
Does not include U.S.
122 Americas Quarterly SPRING 2012
AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG
