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The article examines the impact that resulted from the transformations occurred in the Uruguayan social structure during the 1990s on the household's portfolio of assets. More specifically, the author seeks to enhance our conceptual and methodological understanding of the nature of changes that are linked to transformations of particular type assets. At its core, the paper seeks to provide input for public policy design and contribute to the development of a new theoretical approach based on previous formulations of the asset-vulnerability framework. As characterized in this paper, there are three substantial transformations affecting the household's assets portfolio, influenced by changes in the employment, family and residential structures. First, recent disruptions in the job market such as increasing process of precarization, labor flexibilization, changes in labor legislation, high unemployment rates, insufficient creation of job opportunities and rise of low paid positions, have weakened the structure of opportunities for vulnerable families. Second, changes in family structures and family organization resulting from an incomplete second demographic transition, have promoted increases in divorce rates, in the number single headed households, evident crisis of the institution of marriage, and children born out of wedlock. Finally, the paper examines the group of influences that derive from the progressive segmentation of social structures as a consequence of residential, educational and labor segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most serious consequences of the residential segregation processes is the increase in risks of social exclusion of low-skilled workers. With this conviction, the author explores the effects of the social composition of Montevideo neighborhoods on employment opportunities of this category of population. In addition to updating the figures on the employment situation of low-skilled workers, the paper examines the connection between the attributes of the neighborhood context and the opportunities and requirements of its residents, as well as advancing in building a conceptual framework that allows tying concerns about urban segregation with the arrangements being adopted by advanced capitalism in big cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the perception that residents in low income and vulnerable areas of Montevideo have of their personal security, the image of police corps and the level of trust in relationships with policemen. The authors claim that the prevailing perceptions of insufficient patrolling, and low confidence in police work, create a context of anomie in these areas, resulting in lack of authority to define and maintain the social order. Embracing a territorial perspective, the article examines the dramatic problems that results from the mismatch between the changing distribution of social risks and the old welfare architecture, as seen through the lens of insecurity feelings in the residents of Montevideo. By comparing the insecurity perceptions in the poorest neighborhoods of the city, the study reveals that the emerging type of poverty --characterized by higher levels of informality and higher rates among children--, has been dramatically excluded from the social systems of protection of which the State has been historically guarantor. In consequence, the strategies that these groups deploy to protect their security move from the public to the private sphere. As shown in the study, the lack of minimal levels of social order and security in isolated poor urban areas prevent any possibilities for social development and increase the equity gaps. Drawing upon a combination of perceptions of trust and satisfaction with police performance, the authors develop a typology of relationships between police corps and neighborhood. The main challenge for policy makers is to abandon the situations characterized by social anomie, lack of trust and social order, moving into situations of greater confidence and satisfaction with police staff. The future of these areas and their effective social integration is closely related to the correct implementation of public policies that acknowledge the need to move in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some of the political factors that help us understand the trajectory of the Uruguayan welfare regime. Among the variables considered this essay stresses the long term and structural factors that have shaped the Uruguayan welfare. The essay reflects upon the possible impact that these variables might have in deterring the country from undertaking needed reform. We argue that in the past social-structural factors, combined with institutional variables and political competition have transferred the costs of social adjustment towards the sectors with less social organization. While this dynamic has helped fueled the stability of the political system it has also contributed to what we term an increasing dual pattern of representation. Based on this diagnosis we argue that a new distributional coalition is required in order to break this pattern of representation and its ill effect over the adjustment of the Uruguayan welfare regime. The unprecedented victory of the left on the general elections offers a unique opportunity to structure such a coalition. But the social heterogeneity of the political basis of the left might hinder such possibility, thus blocking a reformist process capable of redefining the welfare trajectory of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research concludes that the recent evolution of the Uruguayan health system has aggravated the existing problems of vertical inequality (class and social stratum) and horizontal inequality (increasing the vulnerability of women, children and teenagers). This tendency does not correspond to a conjuncture but to the divorce between the generation of social and health risks on the one hand, and the architecture of the Uruguayan health system, on the other hand. The analysis of the secondary data from the last two decades provided by the National Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadística), the Public Health Ministry (Ministerio de Salud Pública) and the cooperative health institutions (IAMC, instituciones de asistencia médica colectiva), reflect the increasing gaps of inequality in the access, quality and outcomes of the health care system. Two processes emerge from the research: 1) ebb in the access of poor people to quality health care services and 2) cream- off (migration of the high-income families and individuals to the private health care system), and the causes and effects of each one of them are analyzed in the paper. Both processes especially affect poor women and children in a country which biological reproduction concentrates in the lower socio-economical level and which also presents an increasing proportion of children among the poor. In the context of an integral reform in the Uruguayan health care system, the conclusions serve as a diagnosis of its requirements and flaws in order to avoid patches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative analysis of integration and exclusion processes affecting teenagers and youth in Chile and Uruguay is presented in this paper. The authors argue that approaching the problem by following up welfare levels along the lifecycle of individuals, in terms of the intergenerational distribution of opportunities, would allow for better inferences on the future of welfare in the countries, as compared with alternatives approaches. Generational opportunity gaps are built upon a set of key elements: fertility patterns, structure and evolution of employment, and evolution of public expenditure. The combination of these elements generates the capital portfolio of households (physical, human and social capitals). Teenagers and youngsters are exposed to risk situations that depend mostly upon the capital portfolio of their households. With this approach, data coming mainly from comparable households surveys in the two countries under study are examined. The findings show that, in the last decade Chile and Uruguay, represent two different models of intergenerational welfare distribution, in terms of family risk patterns and teenager risk behaviors. While Chile exhibits moderate gaps between the infant and teenager population vis a vis the adult population, Uruguay shows a deep imbalance in the same populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This biographical paper deals with the particular ordeal of a rural French teacher, of Alsatian origin, in Uruguayan territory during the implementation of the varelian reform. The story of the life of Augusto Hartmann, who entered the country as Emilio Martínez, is an approximation to the different profiles of those who contributed to the development of primary education in Uruguay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo presenta un análisis de la inversión extranjera en Uruguay desde el año 2000 hasta 2012, con énfasis en la participación de capitales foráneos en el proyecto de construcción de una planta de celulosa de la empresa forestal Montes del Plata. Políticas gubernamentales sobre inversiones extranjeras, construcción de infraestructura y relaciones económicas de Uruguay son algunos de los temas mencionados.