This article presents both a theoretical framework and a methodology that attempt to capture the complex interactions among labor markets, families, and public policy that currently constitute Latin American welfare regimes. Drawing on cluster analysis based on available data for 18 countries, the study identifies three welfare regimes. Two are state welfare regimes: protectionist (e.g. Costa Rica) and productivist (e.g. Chile); one is nonstate familiarist (e.g. Ecuador and Nicaragua). In a region where people's well-being is deeply embedded in family relationships, closer scholarly attention to how social structures interact with public policy bears not only academic interest but also policy implications, particularly for adapting particular welfare regimes to the local welfare mix. I s it possible that empirical analysis truly honors the notion of welfare regimes, whether state or nonstate? Can it shed light on the role of labor markets and families, the sexual division of labor behind them, and the qualitatively different roles they play under specific welfare "mixes"? This article presents both a theoretical framework and a methodology that come closer than previous efforts to capturing the complex array of interactions among labor markets, families, and public policy in Latin America. Drawing on cluster analysis based on available data for 18 countries, a preliminary application of this theoretical framework and methodology confirms, refines, and complements previous studies that focused on public policy and, to a lesser extent, labor markets that disregard families and unpaid work. More specifically, the study identifies three welfare regimes. Two are state welfare regimes, one protectionist and one productivist; and one is nonstate familiarist.In a region where people's well-being is deeply embedded in family relationships and is frequently more dependent on female unpaid labor than on public policy, closer attention to how social structures interact with public policy has not only academic interest but policy implications: policy changes could improve welfare regime "architectures" (EspingAndersen 2002). Unlike policy prescriptions packaged under the Washington Consensus (Williamson 1990) as "one size fits all," those architectures are likely to be plural and path-dependent. This article demonstrates that an empirical typology of welfare regimes can be a useful tool, at the

This paper provides a conceptual lens to address the complexity of policies involved in reconciling paid work and family responsibilities. Our typology classifies policies by how they intervene in the relation between paid work and family relations-by alternating paid and unpaid work, by transferring unpaid work outside the family or by formalizing home-based paid care-and by disaggregating implications for both social equity and gender relations (maternalism versus paternal or state co-responsibility) across policies. The paper makes a three-fold contribution. First, our typology looks at a set of policies rather than specific policies or overall policy regimes. Second, it helps disaggregate implications for gender and social equity. Third, it allows for comparative analysis of small and large numbers of cases across policy stages. Although we draw on Latin America, 1 our typology has broader application and is especially suited to examining countries with high-income inequality.

Has the past decade of sustained economic growth and political transformations reversed Latin America's historical failure to secure market and social incorporation? To address this question this article draws on the experiences of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay by distinguishing between short‐term outcomes – which may depend on benign international conditions – and policy changes, which are more important for long‐term performance. It highlights the overall success of both Brazil and Uruguay and shows that the other countries have made more progress in terms of social than market incorporation.

Conditional Cash Transfer programs are currently at a crossroads, between consolidating minimum safety nets and laying the basis for universal social policy. In assessing which direction CCTs will take, it is important to analyze their formation. What domestic actors have been influential and how have expert-driven international ideas entered the domestic policy process? Is the impact related to existing welfare regimes? In this article the authors show that in general CCTs are the product of top-down and closed policy formation by elite coalitions, in which international factors play a central role. Nevertheless, domestic factors associated with welfare regimes, in particular the difference between state and non-state, informal regimes, account for important cross-national variations. If CCTs are to become a stepping-stone to universal social policy, closed policy communities have to be opened up.

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