Facing rapid demographic, social and economic transformation, China has taken steps to extend and strengthen the urban Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS). The MLSS is a social assistance programme initially focused on the chronically poor, but later extended to the long-term unemployed. The...

The paper tracks recent changes in the components of social protection in Latin America, the reforms to social insurance in the 1990s and the growth of social assistance in the 2000s, and assesses their effects on poverty and inequality and implications for welfare institutions in the region....