LocationsOn Progress, Deceleration and Sticky Deprivations: Insights From the Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America
May 28, 2025
Latin America has a new regional comparability index, the Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America (MPI-LA). This index was launched by UNDP and ECLAC earlier this year and will be published annually by ECLAC, a powerful tool to monitor the evolution of multidimensional poverty exclusively for the region.
Multidimensional poverty goes beyond the lack of income, including various deprivations in essential areas of life, such as education, healthcare, and housing. A Global MPI has been published by UNDP and OPHI since 2010, a robust and widely recognized measure that provides comparable data for 112 countries and offers valuable insights into the nature and intensity of acute poverty worldwide. Ensuring global comparability demands the use of indicators that are both universally relevant and supported by robust, cross-national data. The Global MPI responds to this policy imperative by providing a standardized framework that enables consistent monitoring and comparison of acute poverty trends across countries. Naturally, the use of a standardized framework means that some region-specific indicators may fall outside its scope, even where relevant data exists. In regions such as Latin America the Global MPI serves as a foundation from which more detailed, context-specific analyses can be developed. Given that the region consists largely of middle-income countries, expanding the framework beyond acute poverty also offers an opportunity to build on the MPI’s strengths and tailor policy responses to evolving development needs.
The MPI-LA introduces a regionally adapted measure, using context-specific thresholds and harmonized data across 17 countries to provide a more nuanced picture of multidimensional poverty in the region (unfortunately, comparable data is not available for the English- and French-speaking Caribbean, underscoring the urgent need to advance efforts toward more comprehensive and comparable data collection). The MPI-LA contributes new analytical insights to enrich public debate, facilitate regional comparability, and foster cooperation around shared policy priorities. It also complements National MPIs -already adopted by 13 countries in the region- which are powerful public policy tools designed to reflect each country’s specific realities and priorities. For countries without national measures, the MPI-LA can serve as an approximation of their circumstances and a basis for shaping public policy.
This #GraphForThought uses the MPI-LA to shed light on the characteristics and dimensions of poverty in LA and the potential ways forward for poverty reduction with a regional approach. Figure 1 shows that significant progress has been made: multidimensional poverty was nearly halved in 15 years, from 45.8% in 2008 to 25.4% in 2023. Yet, progress is stalling. Annual reductions that averaged 1.5 to 1.6 percentage points (the difference between poverty rates from one year to the next) have dropped below one percentage point since the pandemic.
This deceleration is also visible across individual dimensions, albeit at different rates. While deprivations in internet access, education, and sanitation have declined rapidly, others, like overcrowding, job quality, and labour participation, have seen little improvement over the past 15 years (Figure 2). Nevertheless, all dimensions have seen progress slow down since 2015 or 2020. Overcrowding, for instance, still affects nearly 3 out of 10 households in LA. At the current pace, it would take another 15 years to reduce this to just 2 in 10.
Labour market indicators show even slower reductions. In 2022, 41% of households had at least one member in a low-quality job, defined by MPI-LA as unpaid family work, no access to a pension, or wages below the poverty line. This figure has barely changed from 44.3% in 2008 and even rose slightly during the pandemic.
Labour participation has also stagnated. The share of households with working-age members either unemployed or out of the workforce due to unpaid care work dropped from 41% in 2008 to 35.1% in 2022, but annual reductions have halved since 2015. Yet unemployment in LA remains relatively moderate, 6.2% in 2024 compared to 4.9% in OECD countries, pointing instead to a persistent issue with labour force participation, especially among women. On average, for every woman in the workforce, there are 1.5 men -a gender gap that has barely narrowed in a decade.
These ‘sticky’ deprivations signal deeper structural challenges. Issues like overcrowding and poor job quality signal complex public policy problems, indicating an intersection of structural issues including low productivity, rapid urbanization, and inequality. The region’s high urbanization rates and the growth of urban poverty make addressing overcrowding particularly complex, requiring sustained, targeted policies -such as expanding affordable or public housing- to help families access adequate living conditions. While job training can support broader workforce participation, boosting women’s inclusion will also demand investments in public care systems to reduce their unpaid care burden, along with shifts in social norms that limit their employment opportunities. Improving access to quality jobs, through stronger human capital, better job matching, or expanded pension coverage, will require cross-sector coordination and reforms in social protection systems.
Reenergizing progress in multidimensional poverty reduction in Latin America is feasible but will require long-term, targeted investments rather than quick fixes. Closing the remaining gaps will necessitate creating the conditions for households to accumulate the type of assets, such as decent housing and skills that lead to stable and well-paid jobs, that are not easily acquired through cash transfers. The region has made significant progress, but advancing further will mean tackling the underlying barriers that hold back resilient human development.
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