Poverty and extreme poverty in Costa Rica:

A historical debt still to be solved

Abstract

The sustained deterioration in basic and extreme poverty rates are just some of the indicators that have led Costa Rica to be considered one of the most unequal countries in the world. State management through public policy has not been enough to reverse this trend, which has been sustained since the early 1990s, coinciding with the period of intensification of the openness policy, which has been betting on since the early 80s of the last century.
The intensity and temporality of the denial of the right to housing, health and social protection, together with the inequalities in the conditions of access to education and the exclusion of certain social sectors for their access to decent jobs, are the elements that are analyzed in this article, attempting an approximation to the understanding of the problem of poverty in the country.
In spite of the historical recognition that the country has had in terms of consolidation of its democracy, respect for human rights, strengthened public institutions and a solid social rule of law, during the last few years this condition has changed. The country has experienced a significant deterioration in the coverage of health, education, housing, labor and social security services, and despite the various efforts to reverse this, this has not been possible, inducing the bulk of the population to a state of disillusionment and uncertainty that leads to distrust in the proposals of traditional political parties and leaders.
Considering the statements made in this article and without pretending a definitive answer, the poverty situation could be directly related to the type of social policy promoted by the governments of the last 40 years, the obsolescence of the management of the social sector institutions, the impossibility of articulating a strategy respecting the work spaces of each institution and the short-termism of the planning processes.