ARTICLE Understanding social protection systems in Latin America and the Caribbean: Typologies and efforts of classification Mariana Willmersdorf Steffen | Soraya Vargas Côrtes Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Correspondence Soraya Vargas Côrtes, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Email: vargas.cortes@ufrgs.br Funding information Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cien- tífico e Tecnológico, Grant/Award Number: PQ Abstract The aim of this article is to present the current debate on Latin American social protection systems. Several studies have addressed this issue from different perspectives, discussing the existence or not of a welfare state in Latin America. In this paper, we focus on authors that have proposed a comparative approach to the analysis of these systems, building either typologies or indexes used to classify the existing social protection systems into groups, according to different criteria. By analyzing these criteria, we seek to understand the main trends and specificities of social protection systems in the region, suggesting which typologies would be the best to fit the subject of future researches. We argue that the studies better prepared to this proposal are those considering the peculiarities of the region, specifically the weight of informal welfare providers and its institutional weaknesses. 1 | INTRODUCTION This article presents the current debate on Latin American social protection systems, focusing on comparative studies whose main objective was to build up typologies. Different streams of analysis have built classifications to group the countries, applying different criteria and taking into account the socioeconomic contexts. By comparing these streams, we can identify some convergences and disparities in the criteria and the socioeconomic dimensions used by the authors. Although some studies draw on Welfare State typologies proposed for developed countries, this literature presents a set of novelties related to the specificities of the social protection systems, as well as to the frag- ile institutions of the region. Characteristics such as level of coverage, type of goods and services offered, period when the legislation was published, and institutional capacity of the systems vary widely. Taking social spending 1 as a generic indicator of the Welfare State comprehensiveness, while Uruguay and Costa Rica have levels of spending similar to those of Received: 12 April 2018 Revised: 2 August 2018 Accepted: 3 August 2018 DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12634 Sociology Compass. 2018;e12634. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12634 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/soc4 1 of 10