While cash transfers gain prominence as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a strong impulse to regard them as a stepping-stone towards the formalization of employment and... Show moreWhile cash transfers gain prominence as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a strong impulse to regard them as a stepping-stone towards the formalization of employment and universalization of social protection. This contribution problematizes how populations in informality are included in narrowly targeted social assistance interventions, which are heavily reliant on targeted schemes and fail to make informality legible to programme administrators. The focus of the article lies in the politics of exclusion and inclusion that permeate digital infrastructures, particularly data infrastructures such as social registries, that are used to target Ecuador's most prominent social assistance programme, Bono de Desarrollo Humano, and the COVID-related programme Bono de Proteccion Familiar. The article is based on ethnographic work, interviews and narrative analysis. It finds that social registries compiled for proxy means testing weaken the link between eligibility and informal employment and obscure the processes that perpetuate precarity. More recent data innovations, such as machine learning, are also insufficient to locate vulnerable workers as they learn from historical social registries data and replicate their biases, for example by overlooking non-poor areas where informal employment also occurs. Data infrastructures have shifted attention to the technicalities of the selection of beneficiaries and away from power imbalances in the design of social assistance, despite their selectivity and politics. Show less
The conditional cash transfer programme Bono de Desarrollo Humano in Ecuador has allowed the increase in coverage of the social protection system to families in a situation of poverty, drawing... Show moreThe conditional cash transfer programme Bono de Desarrollo Humano in Ecuador has allowed the increase in coverage of the social protection system to families in a situation of poverty, drawing attention to care activities for human capital for- mation. Although women have gained more visibility and have been included in a significant way under this scheme, their inclusion has not resulted in a ruptu- re of traditional gender roles in the household and society. In what ways can we re-imagine non-contributory social protection to reduce gender gaps and include women in a meaningful and transformative way? This article addresses this question by means of an institutional discussion of the hindrances of the current de- sign and invites a consideration of alternatives aimed at framing a new politics of distribution guided by a right-based rationale and rupture of the normative elements that confine women to the care of the household.El programa de transferencias monetarias condicionadas Bono de Desarrollo Humano en Ecuador ha permitido extender la cobertura del sistema de protec- ción social a familias en situación de pobreza, dando relevancia a las labores de cuidado en la construcción de capital humano. A pesar de que las mujeres han ganado mayor visibilidad y han sido incluidas de manera significativa bajo es- te esquema, su inserción no ha generado rupturas con asignaciones tradiciona- les de género dentro del hogar y la sociedad. ¿De qué manera puede reimaginar- se la protección social no contributiva para reducir las brechas de género e incluir de manera significativa y transformativa a las mujeres? El presente artículo abor- da esta pregunta con una discusión institucional de los limitantes del diseño ac- tual e invita a evaluar alternativas encaminadas hacia una nueva política de distri- bución guiada por una lógica de derechos y ruptura con los elementos normativos que relegan a la mujer al cuidado del hogar. Show less
