Money transfers: Strategy for addressing poverty in Costa Rica

Abstract

This article historically reconstructs the approach taken by the Costa Rican State as an expression of social assistance policy during the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century through the so-called monetary transfers. In general, monetary transfers are strategies to alleviate poverty generated by the economic adjustments of the eighties and nineties in Latin America. They group together public programs framed within social protection, which provide economic support, condition the permanence of the population through mandatory attendance at health and education services, and are disconnected from universal policies because they are focused on certain specific groups. The analysis carried out recognizes the characteristics of social assistance contextualized in neoliberal policies, conditionality, targeting and other control mechanisms linked to the historical transformations generated by the changes in production and State models in recent decades.