In 2010 the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) proposed a comprehensive development strategy entitled Time for equality: closing gaps, opening trails. This edition of Social Panorama takes a more in-depth look at the chain that produces and reproduces social gaps; it addresses other spheres as well. It focuses on how structural heterogeneity (productivity gaps in the national economies), labour segmentation and gaps in social protection are linked along the chain. Demographic factors such as fertility differentiated by education and income level are discussed, as are more specific patterns of risk and exclusion like those impacting young people in the Caribbean.