Since the early 2000s, after a long period of wide and persistent gaps, Latin America has experienced a steady decline in income inequality. This paper presents evidence of a trend reversal in labor income inequality, which is considered the main factor behind such a decline in income inequality across the region. The analysis shows that, while labor income inequality increased during the 1990s, with heterogeneous experiences across countries, it fell in a synchronized way across countries beginning in the early 2000s. This systematic decline was supported by an expansion in real hourly earnings among the bottom of the wage distribution and, to a lesser extent, the middle part of the earnings distribution, thus reducing upper and lower tail inequality. This trend reversal is explained by a lower dispersion of earnings among workers with observable different attributes and by a much less extensive dispersion of residual labor inequality. Regarding the earnings differentials among workers with observable different attributes, the analysis concludes that the decline in labor inequality in Latin America has been closely associated with a reduction in the college/primary education premium and in the urban-rural earnings gap, coupled with a steady drop in the high school/primary education premium, which accelerated markedly since the 2000s, as well as a reduction in the experience premium across all age groups.

The Skills Towards Employability and Productivity (STEP) skills measurement program is part of the World Bank’s portfolio of analytical products on skills. The STEP program consists of two survey instruments that collect information on the supply and demand for skills in urban areas: a household survey and an employer survey. Because it provides a set of core questionnaires and implementation materials, the STEP program not only offers information that can be used for country-level policy analysis but also builds comparable country databases on skills. STEP has been implemented in waves, the first surveys being implemented in seven countries in 2012 (Bolivia, Colombia, Ghana, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR), Ukraine, Vietnam, and the Yunnan Province in China), and the second in five countries in 2013 (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kenya, and Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of (FYR)). The data presented in this publication correspond to these countries. It illustrates the similarities and differences among groups that have completed different education levels on a wide range of issues and outcomes.

Germany’s success in the healthcare sector is reinforced by its training expertise. 'Training – Made in Germany' offers the necessary know-how to meet the challenge in the field of vocational education and training. Germany has a long-standing tradition in this field and enjoys a high reputation for the demand-driven and practical orientation of its qualification programmes. The integration of professional, social and methodological competencies characterises the kind of knowledge German partners can provide. This document presents eight success stories of skill development in the health and geriatric care sector, realised in a joint effort by German and international partners.