Legal Segmentation of Work in Latin America: Colonial Origins and Evolution of Segmentation, Precarisation, Protection and Universalisation

Abstract The chapter discusses the historical emergence and evolution of legal segmentation of work in Latin America. Using a historical institutionalism approach, legal changes during critical junctures in Latin American history are studied to identify the conceptions affecting the marginalisation or inclusion of Black, indigenous and female populations. In addition to early colonialism, the epochal change towards modern capitalism during the abolition of slavery and the introduction of civil codes is discussed as well as the introduction of modern labour legislation and the contradictory phase of introducing human rights legislation during the heyday of neoliberalism. The author underlines that after the introduction of fundamental, race- and gender-based segmentation by the Catholic Church and the Spanish colonial regime, legislation in subsequent phases managed to leave behavioural path dependencies affecting marginalisations widely untouched, replacing institutions with functional equivalents while formally outlawing discrimination incrementally.