Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the aspirations of economic inclusion of the Latin American youth, and how they relate with their assets and vulnerabilities, and with the characteristics of the place where they live.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the aspirations of economic inclusion of the Latin American youth, and how they relate with their assets and vulnerabilities, and with the characteristics of the place where they live. Using survey data on eight Latin American countries, we find that place characteristics have an important influence on the aspirations of young people, stronger than that of individual assets (education, agency) and vulnerabilities. In particular, youths living in rural areas attribute significantly more importance to work, and are significantly more concerned about losing it, compared to their urban counterparts; they also attribute less importance to wealth and success compared to urban youths. In contrast, the aspirations of the adult population appear to be driven by their current level of assets, while place characteristics are not significant.