Popular classes in Argentina: recent changes in its composition (1998-2015)

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the volume and the composition of the popular classes between 1998 and 2015, identifying fractions by type of occupational insertion (salaried or self-employed), the labor qualification and the condition of registration in the social security. In Argentina, the existence of a wide urban working class with high levels of unionization and a self-employed qualified craft sector were the distinctive features of the urban popular atmosphere in the 1940-1976 period. The deindustrialization and the contraction of the formal labor market in the last quarter of the XX century breed a fragmentation of that popular urban world, widening the distances between the center of the salaried workers and a large sector of precarious workers. This transformation was conceptualized as “the passage from the industry to the neighborhood”, implying a whole transformation in the process of structuration of the popular classes. In the 2003-2015 period, the intense process of economic growth driven by the recuperation of the productive sector induced a significant increase in the salaried employment registered in the social security. Contrastingly with other studies that state that there had taken place a process of increasing marginalization, the hypothesis of this article is that it was over this base that the qualified and registered working class becomes again the most dynamic center of the popular classes. We will analyze secondary statistical sources: the databases of the Argentinian Integrated Provisional System from 1998 to 2015 and the Permanent Household Survey. The observed patterns show an increase in the relative weight of the qualified and registered working class, promoting process of ascendant mobility within the popular classes.