The origin of these programmes dates from the debt crisis of the 1980s. Since then they have become "one of the Latin American and Caribbean countries' habitual responses to high rates of unemployment and to the increase in informal activity and poverty caused by the region's low and volatile rates of economic growth" (ECLAC, 2006, p. 157). In the case of programmes designed specifically to mitigate the effects of disasters, public employment programmes provide work building community infrastructures aimed at mitigating disasters and strengthening resilience, in exchange for a wage that provides economic security whilst the work is being undertaken (Bene and others, 2014). In that connection, McCord (2012a) argues that public works are insufficient to generate incomes enabling families to make productive investments and improve their living standards.