How Are We Today? Quality of Urban Life in Argentina First Contributions from the Households Permanent Survey (2003–2012)

Abstract

To reflect on the population’s quality of life is always an exciting assignment, since such challenge includes all of us beyond the social role we play. It can be understood as a measure of achievement, determined by the scale of values prevailing in society. It is about developing social objective indicators in a given time and space, sustained in the theoretical analysis, and integrated into a coherent system of variables and dimensions. Our aim is to investigate the levels of quality of life of the urban population in Argentina between 2003 and 2012, a period called Post-convertibility in Argentina and marked by the implementation of a new model of accumulation with discrepant peculiarities with regard to the previous model of “convertibility” (1991–2001). For that purpose an index of quality of life is applied to cities where the Permanent Household Survey is run, consisting of the Education, Health Care, Work and Housing dimensions. Therefore, these are attempts to analyze what happened with the well-being of Argentine households over the past 10 years.

1 Introduction

To reflect on how the population lives is always an exciting assignment, since such challenge includes all of us beyond the social role we play. At this point the challenge is greater when the proposal is to investigate the population’s quality of life and its evolution between two historical moments encircling a particular political, economic, social, and cultural process, creator of a distinctive model of accumulation.

In this sense, our aim is to investigate the levels of quality of life of the urban population in Argentina between 2003 and 2012, a period marked by the implementation of a style of development called post-convertibility , neo-developmentalism , or post-neoliberalism , to recognize its impact on the evaluation of the welfare of its inhabitants.

The period proposed for the analysis is characterized by a variety of national policies with discrepant peculiarities with regard to the previous model of “convertibility” (1991–2001), both in the wider framework of the neoliberal accumulation regime. Therefore, these are attempts to analyze the well-being of Argentine households over the past 10 years.

Quality of life is a theoretical category that arises in the second half of the twentieth century, and that is still controversial about its meaning and content (Villavicencio and López Pardo 1999; Pacione 2003; Schalock and Verdugo Alonso 2009). Sirgy et al. (2006) developed a comprehensive publication where they discuss the past, present, and future of quality of life on a global scale.

Therefore, far from being a universal category, it fully meets expectations socially constructed in each historical moment and in each territory.

Tonon (2008) indicates that it was the English economist Pigou for the first time who, in 1932, used the term quality of life referring to the possibility of quantifying social services or social costs of Governments’ decisions to determine the net social product.

However, as Gomez and Sabeh point out (2007), it was toward the end of 1970 when the concept achieved its own identity and was defined “as an integrating concept that covers all areas of life (multidimensional character) and refers to both objective conditions and subjective components ” (2007, p. 1):

The quality of life concept tries to reflect the welfare of society, i.e., the satisfaction obtained by both the individuals and the social group, within a specific cultural model, and in relation to the territory. We start from the concept of quality of life such as perceptions, aspirations, needs, satisfactions, and social representations that members of every social grouping experience in relation to their environment and the social dynamics in which they are immersed, including the services that are offered to them and the social interventions that are designed for them and which come from social policies. (Casas 1996, cited by Tonon 2010, p. 26)

According to what Gomes and Sabeh established (2007, p. 3), held by Dennis and Williams, Giangreco, Cloninger (1993), the approaches to research on quality of life, though varied, could gather in two classes: 1) quantitative approaches , the purpose of which is to operationalize quality of life, studying, and using different indicators – social (referring to external conditions related to the environment such as health care, social welfare, friendship, life standard, education, public safety, leisure, neighborhood, housing, etc.), psychological (measuring the subjective reactions of the individual to the presence or absence of certain life experiences), and ecological (measuring the fit between the subject’s resources and the environmental demands); 2) qualitative approaches that adopt a position of listening to the person while he recounts his experiences, challenges, and problems and how social services can effectively support them.

Please note that, from an objective point of view, close to quantitative geography or its latest vision, the automated geography (Buzai and Baxendale 2006), the study of quality of life can be synthesized in the construction of macro variables which bring together diverse indicators . Through the mapping of the elaborate types, it is possible to detect areas or regions formed by spatial units in which data are fairly homogeneously distributed in its interior.

In this regard, we must highlight the contributions of Velázquez in Argentina (2001, p. 15), who has defined quality of life as

a measure of achievement with respect to an optimal established level, taking into account socio-economic and environmental dimensions that are dependent on the scale of values prevailing in society and which vary depending on the expectations of historical progress.¹

The objective social indicators are traits of a certain concept in a given time and space, held in the theoretical analysis, integrated into a coherent system of dimensions and indicators .

To refer to the construction of objective indicators of quality of life implies to understand the index or synthetic measure as a value that provides information beyond the concrete data, enabling a comprehensive knowledge of the reality that we intend to analyze. In the case of the establishment of quality of life indices, it is important to express that there is not a unique methodology on which domains or dimensions and indicators must be used for their measurement (Bueno de Paiva 2008; Abaleron 1998; Fernández Mayoralas and Rojo Pérez 2005; Palomino and Lopez 2000; Sirgy et al. 2006). Traditionally in the construction of indices of quality of life, the applied methodology consists of the selection of a set of attributes (dimensions or domains) that are recognized as representative aspects of the level of well-being of the population.

In the present work, an index of quality of life of particular implementation is arranged, with timely implementation applied to the cities included in the Permanent Household Survey (EPH-INDEC) , the databases of which correspond to 32 urban agglomerations for 2012. The Permanent Survey of Households (EPH) is a national program that aims to relieve the sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population. It is applied in Argentina from 1973 through punctual measurements in the months of May and October, which are referred to as waves. It is from 2003 that the EPH is applied continuously generating quarterly and half-yearly results.² According to INDEC , the Permanent Survey of households (EPH) is a multipurpose survey that collects information on households and individuals around the following topics: employment situation, basic demographic characteristics (age, sex, marital status, etc.), migratory, housing, educational characteristics, and income (INDEC 2011).

The constructed index of quality of urban life consists of the education, health-care, work, and housing dimensions. A geographic information system (GIS) , a tool that facilitates the creation of thematic cartography and synthesis maps, is used for spatial treatment.

In Argentina (see Fig. 4.1), the assessment of the levels of quality of urban life is done from a geographical point of view, in order to identify the territorial distribution of social indicators which demonstrate the well-being of the population. Selected variables are integrated into every urban area from a measure that summarizes, in addition, the specific conditions of the places, their peculiarities, and their histories, on the basis of understanding the geographical space as a social construction (Santos 2000; Harvey 1979, among others). This analysis allows us to describe the socio-territorial configurations along time and to gain an approach to the degree of socio-spatial inequality, with the purpose of contributing to the better management of urban territories.

Fig. 4.1

Location of the Argentine Republic (provinces) (Source: Author’s own creation from digitalized mapping of the Population and Territory Research Group (GESPYT), National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP))

To achieve the proposed objective our study is organized in the following way. The first section describes the Argentine urban system , the historical process of urbanization and the current situation of the urban areas where the Permanent Household Survey applies. The second point presents an overview of the national political strategy in Argentina after the year 2002 and its main social effects. Under the third heading, the methodological aspects of the study are described. The fourth section poses the description and interpretation of spatial configurations obtained from the analyzed data. To conclude, in the closing section, the results achieved while trying to answer the question “how are we today?” are summarized.

2 Urban Argentina

Within the Latin-American context, the urbanization in Argentina was an early process, with increased visibility since the end of the nineteenth century, indisputably linked to the leading role of the city of Buenos Aires and the urban system developed on the fluvial axis that stretches between Rosario (province of Santa Fe) and La Plata (province of Buenos Aires). These cities not only concentrated political-administrative, cultural, and service functions, but they were also recipients par excellence of the massive immigration from overseas that characterized the agricultural and livestock export accumulation model (1870–1930).

Then, the intensification of internal migration supported urbanization, influenced by the political-cultural framework that characterized the period, with the transition to the model of Substitutive Industrialization of Imports (1930–1952) and later to the Developmental one (1958–1976).

Thus, Argentina is a country in which the proportion of population living in cities (91 %) has kept high for several decades, a phenomenon which replicates beyond regional specificities, in the various administrative jurisdictions (provinces) that constitute it. Toward the middle of the twentieth century, the proportion of Argentine urban population was 62 %, according to the 1947 census. In 1960 it increased to 72 %; in 1970 moved to 79 %; in 1980 to 83 %; in 1991 to 88 %, getting to 90 % in 2001; and in 2010 it showed a 91 % of their total population residing in urban areas.

It is significant to clarify that, with the implementation of the liberalizing model of accumulation (since 1976) the urban system began to give evidence of some transformations. As Velazquez declares

…from before the farming export stage and up to the imports substitution, the Argentine spatial configuration promoted the urban primacy of Buenos Aires, but the recent process of dismantling the productive scheme affected large cities to a greater extent, partially reversing this century-old process. (2001, p. 50)³

The population growth can then be seen in medium-sized cities, accompanied by some spatial dispersion of this type of settlement (Velázquez 2001).

The urban population resides in cities of different demographic sizes. For the specific case of Argentina, these can be classified according to the number of inhabitants, in (1) agglomerations of more than one million inhabitants; (2) agglomerations of intermediate size (ATIs), large ones between 400,000 and 999,999 inhabitants, and small ones between 50,000 and 399,999 inhabitants; (3) small cities between 20,000 and 49,999 inhabitants; (4) large towns between 19,999 and 2000 inhabitants; and (5) small villages up to 1999 inhabitants (Vapñarsky and Gorojovsky 1990).

By the year 2001, Erbiti (2007), based on the classification of Vapñarsky and Gorojovsky (1990), identified 900 urban centers, three of which were millionaire agglomerations: the metropolis of Buenos Aires, Great Córdoba, and Great Rosario, seven large ATIs, 54 small ATIs, 95 small cities, and 741 were large towns.⁴

For the set of towns in the Argentine Republic, the Households Permanent Survey (EPH)⁵ methodology retrieves data of 32 urban areas inhabited by 70 % of the total population of the country, covering all the capitals of provinces and urban areas of more than 100,000 inhabitants (Fig. 4.2 and Table 4.1).

Fig. 4.2

Urban areas based on the number of inhabitants in 2012 (Source: Author’s own creation based on data from INDEC, Households Permanent Survey 2012, processed with REDATAM + SP, and mapping by the Population and Territory Research Group (GESPYT), National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP))

Table 4.1 Urban areas where EPH is applied

The dynamics of the urban areas indicates that regions with higher than 15 ‰ growth rate are those of intermediate size and provincial capitals.

In the next section the post-convertibility period is briefly characterized due to its direct link with the living conditions in the country.

3 Argentina in the Post-convertibility Period

Since the crisis of 2002, the Argentine society is crossing a period of economic, political, social, and cultural changes, which has been labeled by the specific literature as “post-convertibility,” “neo-developmentalism,” or “post-neoliberalism” (García Delgado and Chojo Ortíz 2006; García Delgado 2010; Varesi 2010; Basualdo 2011; Azpiazu et al. 2011).

Opinions that portray this new stage in Argentina agree that it involves a strategy of the national governmental policy to reverse the negative effects of the neoliberal model implemented since 1976, and deepened in the decade of the 1990s during the process based on the exchange rate convertibility (one dollar = one “peso”), which collapsed in late 2001.

The breakdown of the capital accumulation pattern sustained by an existing financial recovery between 1976 and 2002 led to the transformation of the style of development based on several factors explaining the high economic growth in the first part of this new period. Among these change factors, we can include a major devaluation of the real exchange rate, policies that encourage the revival of the domestic economy, an international context that benefits the terms of exchange, and an exchange of the external debt that diminishes its incidence and allows to eliminate the presence of the IMF as an examiner of the economic policy, among other representative features of the new political order that was implemented. This economic growth was the basis for significant improvements in the living conditions of workers, particularly from the decrease of unemployment (Basualdo 2011).

However, due to the difficulties in the countryside in Argentina in 2008,⁶ motivated by the problems that emerged between the Government and the agricultural producers, because of the former’s decision to increase withholding exports of soybean and sunflower and because of the global crisis originated in the core countries in the same historical time, a set of state policies was implemented to mitigate its domestic impact, with different outcomes in the short term, but with definite consequences in the long term on the living conditions of the popular sectors (Basualdo 2011). Among them, the return to a nationalized retirement system and the extension of the system of allowances for minors must be mentioned. These decisions represent fundamental measures since social policies aimed at reversing poverty and destitution.

The benefits of the new model of accumulation are reflected in the main social indicators. Among them we will address three dimensions related to the well-being of the population and based on the data reported by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses⁷ (INDEC) :

• 1. Poverty by income in urban areas is estimated to have reached 36.5 % of households and 47.8 % of the population in the second half of 2003, while its evolution until the second half of 2012 achieved a very significant decline covering 4 % of households and 5.4 % of the population. Moreover, destitution, which had come to comprise 20.4 % of households and 27.7 % of the population in the second half of 2003, showed a drastic decline until the second half of 2012, involving 1.5 % of households and 1.5 % of the population (Argentina 2013a).

• 2. Rate of unemployment also showed a significant decrease in path. In the fourth quarter of 2003, it had risen to 14.5 % of the economically active population who lived in urban areas. For the fourth quarter of 2012, it involved 6.9 % of the economically active population, i.e., an estimate of 808,000 people who wished to enter the production of goods and services market (Argentina 2013b). Although this noticeable decline of the underutilization of the labor force was accompanied by the creation of new jobs in all the period, job insecurity continues to affect a prominent portion of the workers. Out of 100 people who work, 40 are in the informal sector or work illegally or are not registered (Arroyo 2010).

• 3. Gaps of inequality in the distribution of income also marked a slow progress toward social equilibrium. The distance between the richest 10 % and the poorest 10 % fell from 36 to 26 points in the urban areas where the EPH is applied: in the fourth quarter of 2003, the upper decile received 37.4 % of the gross income, while the bottom decile only absorbed 1.2 %; for the fourth quarter of 2012, the recipients of income appropriated 27.9 % in the top decile, and 1.5 % in the bottom decile of the total.

This positive direction in the economy and in the general living conditions of the population does not conceal the problems that still persevere in Argentine society. In this regard, we can mention the absence of a structural change in the profile of the industrial production expertise and of participation of Argentina in the international division of labor, the severe disparities between the entire territory and the regions that comprise it, the high concentration of business markets, the constant retreat of the local capital to foreign countries, the high rates of precarious and informal employment, the existence of very low wages in relation to international and historical levels, and the inflationary pressures linked to the new economic approach (Azpiazu et al. 2011)

In addition, the persistence and the strengthening of the economic concentration and the foreign affinity of the local productive configuration helped strengthen the traditional model based on comparative advantages. These were mainly the abundancy of raw materials (agriculture-industry, mining, oil and some industrial commodities), and the imports substitution industrial model, based on the internationalization of the production processes (Azpiazu et al. 2011).

However, the new model has shown the ability to drive the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) and provide standards of living relatively similar to those of the model of convertibility, but it is worth remembering that, even in their best moments, both models represent the consolidation of an uneven Argentina, with a working class fragmented by salary dispersion and its different forms to be included (or not) into the labor market (Varesi 2010).

In this sense, the national policy is under the challenge of offering strategies to overcome the continuities of the neoliberal model, in order to mark a real break with its postulates, which promote economic expansion without a similar correlation in social welfare.

According to García Delgado (2010), we must break the strong trends toward the economics of the past decades, recovering the importance of culture, social facts, and subjectivity , in such a way that the accumulation models be worried not only for responding to the well-being of the population in terms of income, wages, education, and health care but also for evaluating the expectations of society about a vague but increasing demand: the quality of life.

4 Conceptual and Methodological Aspects

In this country the criteria used to classify the population as urban or rural are demographic. So the population is categorized as urban when living in agglomerations of 2000 inhabitants, and as rural when residing in the open field or in agglomerations with less than 2000 inhabitants.

From the 1991 census the term locality was made explicit, understood as agglomeration. In this regard, Vapñarsky and Gorojovsky (1990) point out that talking about locality, village, town, city, or similar terms, we are referring to built-up areas interconnected through streets. In addition, if the distance between two areas with those features is less than 2 km, both are considered part of the same locality or agglomeration.

On the other hand, the definition of urban area is to be understood as a set of agglomerations, in accordance with the theoretical precision established for census statistics (INDEC 1995, series G, N ° 2).⁸

With respect to the development of the index of quality of life , in this occasion it applies to the urban areas where the Households Permanent Survey is directed (29 urban areas in 2003, 32 urban areas in 2012), based on methodologies already tested in previous works applied to the urban area of Mar del Plata (Lucero et al. 2008; Mikkelsen and Velázquez 2010).

Indices serve to notify both general public as well as agents capable of developing strategies aimed at improving the living conditions of the population; although we must recognize that the simplification and the gathering of information with the sole objective of scientific dissemination reduces the analytical potential of results, nonetheless, at the same time, it makes a great amount of summarized data visible to all strata of society (Tanguay et al. 2009). On the other hand, and in relation to studies on quality of life, we feel the need to use a set of indicators . As Marans and Stimson point out

In order to understand the QOL in a particular setting, such as a city, we need to measure conditions in that place using sets of indicators. Furthermore, we need to monitor changes in those conditions over time in order to appraise or determine if and how those conditions have changed. And if they have changed, we need to determine if they have improved or deteriorated and by how much (2011, p. 2).

Secondary data coming from national statistics sources (INDEC, 2003–2012) were the basis for the calculation of an index of quality of life, the components of which were selected from a set of attributes that were recognized as representative aspects of the level of well-being of the population. In this sense, the selection of dimensions and variables is based on review of specialized literature (Velázquez 2001, 2008; Marans and Stimson 2011), in the attributes that have been especially cared for from the policies of the neo-developmentalist decade in Argentina or in those which have an outstanding presence in national social ambitions, as the tenure of housing in property (Torrado 2003).

With the application of multivariate analysis techniques , an index that summarizes the status of the indicators contained in the dimensions of education, employment, health care, and housing was elaborated (Table 4.2).

Table 4.2 Dimensions and urban quality of life indicators

The methodological path starts with the processing of secondary data provided by INDEC.⁹ So the matrix of original data was designed (MDO) , which was then transformed into a matrix of data index (MDI) . In the MDI, percentage values for base variables are obtained, which define general characteristics of each spatial unit or urban area (Buzai 2003). The production of this matrix, as an introduction to standardization, has to do with the heterogeneity of the urban areas in their sociodemographic characteristics, mainly related to the process of intense urban concentration, distinctive of Argentina (Vapñarsky and Gorojovsky 1990).

Next the MDI becomes MDZ, through data standardization. The values for the MDZ are calculated with the formula of “Z-scores”

$$ {z}_{xi}=\frac{x_i-\overline{x}}{\sigma } $$

where z _xi is the z-score of variable x for spatial unit i, x _i is the variable to be standardized, $\overline{x}$ is the mean value of variable x for the entire study, and σ is the standard deviation of the variable x for the entire study.

According to Buzai (2003, p. 112) with this calculation, each original data is transformed into a score that deviates in positive and negative values with respect to $\overline{x}$ = 0, being σ = 1.

Thus comparability among all the indicators is accomplished. From the matrix of standardized data, the index of quality of life (ICdV) was obtained, as simple average of the indicators for each spatial unit, and later charted with a system of geographic information (GIS) .

However, the weight of the designed dimensions is different when shaping the summarizing measure. According to the distribution of the number of indicators , the education dimension amounts to 15.4 % of the total value (2 indicators), the work dimension affects the 23.1 % (3 indicators), the health-care dimension affects the 46.1 % (6 indicators), and the housing dimension adds the remaining 15.4 % (2 indicators). In this way, the health-care dimension supports the greater relative weight in the total theoretical value, as a result of considering that the quality of life of the urban population is based on the access to the main services that protect human health in the territories of large concentration of inhabitants.

Dimensions and selected representative indicators are listed in Table 4.2.

4.1 Educational Dimension

Within this concept, only formal education is considered, i.e., education given by state or private controlled institutions devoted to the instruction and education of people in their different stages of life and, therefore, with diverse objectives and degrees of complexity. It is understood that individuals at various educational levels get tools that allow them to be part and participate of life in society (Lucero et al. 2008).

In this sense, Sabuda says that the aim of achieving a high level of education is associated with the fact that

… people achieve greater capacity to develop their potentials and be able to enter the labor market, reinforcing social cohesion and personal development to improve their quality of life. In contrast, the lesser education of a person is related to the idea of failure and social exclusion, situations which impact on the increase of the social gaps (2008, p. 145).¹⁰

The indicators selected for this dimension take into consideration the opposite ends of the hierarchy scale in the education system. We start from primary and initial instruction, since they are compulsory in all the territory of the Argentine Republic. Full university level is located in the upper end of the educational goals, since one of the clearest trends of our time is the increasing importance of knowledge as a factor assumed within the newest forms of organization and management of production and work. In the past the ownership of land and the means of production were the overriding factors that structured societies in economic, social and political terms. Today, to access or not to knowledge becomes the boundary that separates full members of society from non-full or excluded members. In this sense, access to full university education level is visualized as the best prospect in the formal education system.

On the other hand , it is accepted that the possession of a cultural capital affects social reproduction as long as it is also linked to the type of job placement and the control of sanitary conditions (preventive medical care, sanitation, food, fertility) and of housing conditions (ambitions in relation to the location of the housing and its structural characteristics).

4.2 Work Dimension

To consider the inclusion of employment and the level of formality indicators, analyzed from recorded work, makes it possible to understand fundamental elements in the study of the well-being of individuals. As indicated by Lucero,

the prevailing cultural model in the Argentine society involves recognizing the role attributed to the employment of the active members of the community as a necessary means for access to goods and services and as a key value of emancipation and realization (2008, p. 253).¹¹

In this way it is possible to say that employment has direct and indirect effects on welfare.

Directly it is evident that it constitutes a source of economic capital for households. While indirectly, the possession of economic resources and the relaxing feeling of having satisfied home needs contribute to the individual well-being in a comprehensive manner. In addition, when employment is formally recorded, it allows to reinforce present welfare through access to medical services and employment benefits (licenses, holiday, compensation for dismissal, salary increases, among others) and also the quality of future life, since pension contributions are the source for the socio-economic protection for the concluding retired population (Mikkelsen et al. 2013, p. 7).¹²

In order to appreciate how labor issues are involved in the performance of quality of life, two indicators were chosen. First of all is the rate of nondemanding underemployment, defined as the percentage between the population working less than 35 h a week and does not seek to increase the time spent on work activities, and the economically active population (INDEC 2011). It is an indicator of interest because the fall of the underemployment is a measure of the quality of employment (Lanari 2010), as one can see by comparing 2003–2012 figures. Secondly, the employment rate was selected, calculated as the percentage between the working population and the total population (INDEC 2011).

Finally, the percentage of population that has contributed to the retirement system is an indicator of the level of employment registration and, therefore, of the quality of employment, at the same time related to current (insurance, social security, participation in wage bargaining processes) and future benefits (possibility of obtaining a retirement, generally from age 65), for the worker and his family. It is defined as the ratio between the population who own contributions or have employer deductions (in any case intended for the welfare system) and the total economically active population. It is necessary to take into account that the economically active population for the EPH is comprised by people over 14 years of age, who have an occupation or that, without it, are actively looking for it.

4.3 Health-Care Dimension

Health, understood as a status of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of diseases or illnesses (World Health Organization, 2013), is an individual familiar need, but it is also a state objective of public nature and great extent.

In the Argentine Republic, the right to health care is recognized constitutionally since the 1994 reform. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the proclamation of rights and guarantees, article 75, paragraph 22, lists the treaties and conventions to which the state adheres, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) where health care is recognized as a human right.

According to Fernández Mayoralas Fernández and Rojo Pérez (2005, p. 126) health is defined as

The value assigned to the duration of life, modified by social opportunities, perceptions, functional status and disability, caused by diseases, accidents, treatments or policies. (Patrick and Erickson 1993)

It is important to consider not only the states of disease, or the presence and possibility of access to centers or health services, but that it is of interest to think about prevention, and this is strongly related to food, hygiene, habitability conditions of dwellings, and even to education.

Methodologically, it is necessary to explain that since the source of data collection, the EPH, used here does not make explicit measurement of people’s fitness, indirect indicators of the health situation of the population and households are used instead , considered equally illustrative, referring especially to the possibilities of access to medical services.

In Argentina, the different state levels organize their own public health-care systems, but as a general rule, their capacity to meet all of the health-care demands is insufficient. Therefore, the indication of a medical coverage in any private systems or its combination with a public system is the best evidence of access to the health-disease assistance process outside the specifically public system, both in the preventive field and specific treatments. In addition, it highlights the type of economic inclusion of individuals, because of its close connection with the employment and income situation.

The remaining selected indicators aim to show the potential impact of the structural conditions of the housing and its relative location on health, applying the term “health care” to this dimension, since it refers to a set of services organized for public health care. Thus, households with water connection inside and bathroom for exclusive use indicate the existence of probable good hygienic conditions for its members. The use of drinking water sources of unreliable origin in some areas of urban areas, the provision of which is made outside the housing through wells, by means of a motor or manually, would entail deficiencies in the quality of the water, possibly causing gastrointestinal infections, toxin contamination (nitrites, nitrates, arsenic, and bacteria), and improper hygiene conditions. It can be added to this the irregularities in the health-care service, which make it difficult to maintain sanitary conditions and facilitate infections and the proliferation of diseases.

Also the existence of sewerage service illustrates two significant aspects: on the one hand, public investments in networks of services, extending them progressively toward the areas of urban spread, and on the other hand, the possibility of households of paying their network connection and therefore meeting their needs for better sanitation strategies.

On the other hand, the location of housing farther than 300 m of garbage dumps illustrates two interconnected aspects: (a) the public policies of urbanization control in inauspicious areas and the provisions regarding the disposal of waste, pursuant to article 41 of the Constitution; and (b) the possibilities of households to choose a site of residence that does not put at risk the health of its members.

Finally, the indicator on the location of housing in non-flooded area refers to both micro and macro social aspects. From the point of view of households, there is the possibility of living in areas that do not compromise the health and the physical integrity of people and dwellings. From public policies, the commitment to the regulation of settlements in places of risk of flooding is evident, in order to preserve population and housing.

4.4 Housing Dimension

Housing is a basic component, which is defined as a configuration of services – housing services – that must give environmental satisfaction, living space, social life, security, privacy, identity, and physical accessibility, among others (Lucero et al. 2008). Moreover, it is the setting in which daily and biological reproduction are performed (Torrado 2003). Accordingly, in the determination of the levels of life quality, housing has a significant role, as support and product of everyday life, closely linked with the remaining selected dimensions.

The structural conditions of houses are measured by observing whether there is overcrowding in homes, considering that the average of two persons or less per room indicates good conditions in the relationship between the number of members of the household and housing accommodations. Hence, this indicator allows inferring the everyday situation of households to the inside of the housing unit, undoubtedly the lack of crowding responding to the preservation of privacy and comfort.

With respect to the indicator referred to as ownership of housing and land, it also highlights that in Argentina this condition represents a high social value from the first decades of the twentieth century. As Torrado (2003) notifies us from various social, political, economic, and cultural sectors, the access to one’s own house is established as the identifying element in national urban reality.

5 So, How Are We Today?

A first reading of Figs. 4.3 and 4.4 shows the spatial configurations of the index of quality of life (ICdV) from the distribution of achieved values for the urban areas that the EPH analyzes, corresponding to the fourth quarters of 2003 and 2012. Levels of the index are presented in four intervals, two of which are located in values above the mean of the set, indicating a quality of life rated as medium and high, and other two intervals are positioned below the average for the whole, noting the cities with low and very low levels in the evaluation of the welfare of its inhabitants.

Fig. 4.3

Quality of Life Index. EPH Urban areas. Argentina 2003

Fig. 4.4

Quality of Life Index . EPH Urban areas. Argentina 2012

The observed spatial configurations reveal a steady regionalization in the behavior of the variables selected to study the quality of life of the urban population, whose pattern reflects the territorial disparities between geographic regions of the Republic. The spatial distribution of the ICdV in 2012 divides the country into a Northern Region, whose spatial pattern recognizes the prevalence of low and very low levels in the evaluation of the quality of life of urban dwellers, and a Center-Southern Region, where you can see medium and high grades of ICdV.

Given data are closely linked to the history of the settlement of the national territory , according to the functions that the regions performed in each style of development adopted by the Argentine society, from the Spanish occupation in the sixteenth century to present days, with the natural and constructed potentials for every model of accumulation, with public and private economic investment, which formed the material differential basis in the territories of the country, among other explanatory reasons. In this way, the current situation and recent changes are grounded in a past that reflected the regional disparities in the geographical space.

The analysis conducted for the urban areas selected by the EPH shows the situation of nearly an estimate of 25.5 million inhabitants for the year 2012. Considering that the total population according to the 2010 census is 40 million, the aforementioned quantity is significant. It can be indicated that the progression of the urban areas is the product of the growth rate balance and the intense migratory national and international process in the demographic evolution.

This set of inhabitants are distributed in an uneven way among the four categories of the ICdV : high level calls 18.9 % of the total urban population registered, medium level brings 16.4 %, low level reaches 55.0 %, and very low level is committed to 9.7 % of the total.

As regards the distribution of the indicators that make up the ICdV, Table 4.3 contains the averages calculated for each range of welfare in the fourth quarter of 2012. In general, it is possible to establish that all conditions incorporated to evaluate the quality of life of the urban population go through the categories of the index, thus manifesting a positive association, which behaves in the following manner: the greater the estimated average for the indicator, the greater the degree of well-being of the population; on the contrary, decreasing values relate to the lower categories.

Table 4.3 2003 Quality of Life Index , EPH Urban areas according to variables

There is only a cut of the trend in the indicator referred to the percentage of households that declared ownership of housing and land, households with high and medium ICdV ranges. This behavior could be explained by the expansion of the form of rental ownership, adopted by households that have a better position in the four studied dimensions. With respect to ICdV low values , the increase in the proportion of owner households for housing and land can be explained by its location in neighborhoods away from the center of the cities, where the value of urban land is lower.

The accomplished analysis shows: the wide dissemination of full primary education level, covering virtually the entire population over 13 years old; the strong presence of the full university level among the population of more than 25 years, which summons a fifth of those inhabitants; and the presence of high values of occupation rate in all categories of the ICdV, indicating the achievement of a very low level of unemployment, which is shared among all social groups.

On the other hand, the indicators that differentiate the ICdV categories the most are linked to employment problems still remaining and to other conditions of housing and its environment.

Nonseekers underemployment rate shows the disparities among workers who voluntarily chose part-time jobs within varying degrees of well-being, with the highest incidence in the midst of employed residents in localities of the categories high and low and lower proportion in the medium and very low ICdV levels. The contributions for retirement by pension, which were recently given back to the hands of the state and incorporated to its pension-sharing system, along with medical-security coverage from a private supplier, are the most differentiating indicators among the categories of the ICdV. In the case of the second indicator, more than 80 % of the population in urban areas with high ICdV has a system for the care of their health-disease process that arises from social security, paid health assistance, or other providers outside the public background. Besides, almost 40 % of the population in cities with very low ICdV must rely on the health-care system offered by the state.

With respect to the indicators that define the basic infrastructure of housing , such as owning water connection within the place of residence, having exclusive use of bathroom facilities, having sanitary sewerage facilities, and others involving enjoying sufficient space for each household member, measured from the marker of overcrowding, and also being located away from landfills and in non-flooded areas, produce the greater inequalities in the living conditions of the population that lives in the different urban areas.

In regard to the changes in the quality of urban life estimated between the fourth quarter of 2003 and the fourth quarter of 2012, and on the basis of assessments carried out on 29 urban areas where the EPH was applied in the first specified date (Fig. 4.5), it is possible to perceive that almost half of the locations show an increased ICdV during the period (13 urban areas), while the remaining have undergone a decrease in their respective values (16 urban areas).

Fig. 4.5

Five Differences in ICdV values , between 2003 and 2012

The comparison of the spatial configurations of Figs. 4.3 and 4.4 reveals which localities changed their ICdV category. The range of high ICdV, consisting of 5 localities, shows 2 of them remaining at the same level: the self-governing city of Buenos Aires (CABA) and Ushuaia, to which 3 new localities are added, Great La Plata, Mar del Plata/Batán, and Neuquén/Plottier, whereas 2 other localities belonging to this category of the ICdV in 2003 have descended to the medium group, Rio Gallegos and Santa Rosa/Toay.

At the other end, the range of very low ICdV, which brings together other 5 localities in 2012, maintains several spatial regions of 2003 : Corrientes, Great Tucumán/Tafi, Jujuy/Palpalá, Salta, and Santiago del Estero. However, three localities that ranged as Very Low in 2003, improved their overall value of ICdV, passing to the Low category: Concordia, Great Resistencia and Posadas.

The category of medium ICdV brings together 12 localities in 2012, 6 of which kept the same range: Bahía Blanca/Cerri, Comodoro/Rada Tilly, Great Mendoza, Great Rosario, Great Santa Fe, and San Luis/El Chorrillo. Added to the whole, there is a locality that was registered in the low ICdV in 2003, Río Cuarto; two localities that were included in the high ICdV in 2003, Río Gallegos and Santa Rosa/Toay; and three urban areas incorporated into the EPH more recently, Trelew/Rawson, San Nicolás/Villa Constitución, and Viedma/Carmen de Patagones.

Finally, the low ICdV range incorporates 10 localities, 4 of them remain in the same category (Formosa, Great Catamarca, Great Buenos Aires, and Great San Juan), other 3 localities have improved their location (Concordia, Great Resistencia, and Posadas), while the other 3 localities have descended from medium level (La Rioja, Great Córdoba, and Great Paraná).

These shifts of urban areas among the categories of the ICdV can be explained from changes in the values of the indicators that make up the synthetic measure. On the education dimension, both indicators show a higher percentage in 2012 with respect to all urban areas of 2003. It must also be noted that, despite the disparities in the incidence of the registered work, the percentage of population that benefits from labor retirement in all the cities has increased. Similarly, the proportion of population employed showed an increase in the urban areas, with the exception of Río Gallegos where it was reduced by almost two percentage points. This indicator associates with the proportion of the population that has some form of private attention for health care, the percentages of which improved in urban areas, declining only in Great Catamarca, La Rioja, and Río Gallegos.

The dimensions relating to the conditions of housing and environment displayed negative differences between 2003 and 2012 in a larger number of urban areas . It is about infrastructure, services, and environmental risks, which can be avoided from the management of the urban territories with appropriate policies. Among the observed indicators, housing and land property declined in practically all regions. Its counterpart, the precariousness of housing tenure, combines with the location of the residences close to the sites of garbage dumps, whose share increased in six urban areas, or positioned in floodable areas, which increased in seven urban areas. These changes in the quality of urban life may be indicating the occupation of lands not suitable for house building, which can be considered as a phenomenon of expansion of the spatial segregation and the social marginalization. In turn, the unplanned enlargement of the territory that the urban localities occupy carries with it the lack of essential services for life in the city.

From the point of view of the quality of life of urban dwellers, the scenario is different at the end of the period analyzed (see Tables 4.3 and 4.4). In reference to the indicators selected for the education and work dimensions, average values improved markedly in all categories of the ICdV, while maintaining the distance between the levels of well-being. A similar interpretation matches the indicators related to the health-care and housing dimensions . The characteristics of households with respect to major urban services supply show higher values at the end of the period as the average of the ICdV categories; the indicators relating to the situation of the environmental context achieved an improvement as a whole in the urban areas considered for every interval of measurement of the degree of well-being. Only the indicator about the ownership of housing and land is estimated to have decreased its average values, and this condition is pointing out the persistence of forms of housing tenure explained by the still low levels of income and the occupation of land on the surroundings of the cities. On the other hand, the indicator that measures the incidence of households that are connected to the sewerage service is estimated to have decreased their average values between 2003 and 2012 in the category high of the index of quality of life, possibly due to the occupation of individuals belonging to the wealthier social strata who seek geographic spaces away from the intense urban rhythm, generating new developments through the various forms of the enclosed neighborhoods.

Table 4.4 2012 Quality of Life Index , EPH Urban areas according to variables

6 Final Considerations

Urban areas show truly starring roles. As a consequence, beyond the amount of population they gather, what is essential is to realize that it is within them, at some point in this network, where most processes and socioeconomic and political phenomena are settled. As Lattes (2004) expresses, our place of birth, our place of residence, in which we develop our productive work, models itself as a set of contextual variables that allow understanding and explaining the demographic, economic, social, and cultural dynamics of the society, a statement that characterizes the experience over the past decade in urban areas where the Permanent Household Survey was applied.

In this period, the changes carried out in the style of development adopted at the national level proved to be efficient in the aim of lessening the serious consequences of the economic, political, and social model implemented since the mid-1970s, and deepened in the 1990s, at least in line with the measurements made and on the basis of the indicators selected. Accordingly, the need to return to a productive strategy based on local effort led to the revival of labor markets in different parts of the country, and thus the decrease of the menace of unemployment through the creation of new jobs and the reduction of the underemployment that demands more work. Moreover, the state social programs aimed at saving the emergence of poverty and insolvency managed to form a revenue base in the poorer households.

However, these advances in the well-being of Argentine urban dwellers fail in the same way in every corner of the country.

After the undertaken research work, it is possible to establish the existence of a gradient of better quality of life conditions from the North to the South of the country. If you leave out the urban area of the counties of Great Buenos Aires, areas delimited by the patterns of distribution of the urban quality of life index are distinguished with relative transparency. From the city of Córdoba to the North, the values of lower quality of life gather together. Further on, in a central strip with extension to the Patagonia, average values are situated. Finally, Mar del Plata/Batán, Neuquén/Plottier, La Plata, Ushuaia, and the CABA manifest the best values.

Thus, the fundamental patterns of distribution express the dynamic inertia of the geographical space. In the course of time, and for a type of social construction such as space, the implemented public policies in many cases promoted substantial improvements, but they have not been sufficient to break the inertia of the preceding processes.

To progress in the search for finished explanations allowing understanding of the processes of advances and delays in the behavior of the urban quality of life index of urban areas , in which the EPH is applied, rises as a challenge to be continued, proposing as lines of research the possibility of zooming in certain urban areas in the light of other data collection, taking into account the cultural diversity of our country.