The work is based on a review of the literature on social exclusion. It is argued that the combination of state, market or community / family institutions that make up the welfare regimes in Latin America are key when generating or mitigating social exclusion. The insufficiency of public social policies pushes people and households to promote their own well-being through unpaid family work or the hiring of private services in the market. The access to it is conditioned to the available economic resources, which results in a stratification of the welfare strategies and a segmentation of the social services. Since these resources are obtained from the labor market or from public transfers, the study of both aspects is fundamental when analyzing social exclusion in the region.