Post-layoff work trajectories in Argentina: social inequality and polarization in the late 1990s

Abstract

Scientific paper presented at the ISA-RC02 Midterm Conference "Inequality Beyond Globalization: Economic Changes and the Dynamics of Inequality", held at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland - This paper describes the process of social fragmentation and polarization resulting from market-oriented reforms in Argentina in the 1990s. Relying on both qualitative - quantitative data, we focus on the post-layoff trajectories of nonprofessional workers who lost their stable, benefit-carrying jobs at the end of the recession following the 1994 Mexican peso crisis. We examine these workers’ trajectories by two complementary channels. First, we conduct a comparative analysis of reinsertion paths based on two surveys of laid-off workers, one conducted in the mid-1980s and the other in the late 1990s. This analysis shows that, compared to the mid-1980s, the job market in the late 1990s offered much greater resistance to laid-off workers’ attempts to get reinserted, and a much larger proportion remained unemployed or got discouraged in their job search. Second, we revisit the findings of a body of qualitative studies about workers laid off from stable, benefit-carrying jobs at the end of the 1994/1995 recession. This analysis reveals situations of self-stigmatization and points to a “path dependency” mechanism by which people’s chances in the job market improved or worsened over time, depending on their available resources and how they used them in the post-layoff period.