Two Decades of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in Argentina: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the implications of Argentina’s social assistance policy for economic gender equality, identifying continuities and ruptures across different presidential administrations between 2003 and 2023. It focuses on conditional cash transfer programs, approaching them through an analytical framework that integrates elements of critical state theory, feminist theories of social reproduction, and Latin American structuralism. Using a mixed-methods approach, the article reconstructs the trajectory of these programs over two decades of creation, reformulation, and replacement, driven by governmental social inclusion strategies that have been more or less aligned with a gender perspective. Accordingly, the findings reveal the reinforcement or relaxation of forms of regulation of the excluded labor force that reproduce the sexual division of labor and gender inequalities in both the productive and reproductive spheres. The study also sheds light on policy decisions that have led to advancements in gender equality.