The study of living standards in Latin America became a promising field in economic history, particularly in the last decades. Traditional obstacles, such as the well-known shortage of sources to study pre-modern times or the difficulty in building time series, have begun to be overcome. New datasets, methods, and approaches have been crucial to strengthen the stance taken by this topic in the extant literature. The subject has also gained a place in several Latin American Economic History congresses and has even had specific sessions in the last three WEHC. Despite the progress in the field, there is still the need to go deeper into methodological aspects as well as into the discussion and revision about what we have learned so far. For instance, about some main issues of the economic history of Latin America; the origin, in time and place, of the Divergence with the advanced economies; the explanations about inequality as a permanent feature of this continent; the heterogeneity in living standards between the regions; the effect of the First Globalization in the social and economic aspects of the society; the emergence of mass democracy and the living standards; to mention some of them. This session intends to continue this trend of research, through the discussion of empirically-based contributions focused on the evolution of different dimensions and variables about living standards in Latin America, from the eighteenth century to the present. Proposals will mainly deal with the following topics: wages; cost of living and consumption; labor, income and wealth; welfare indicators, and human capital The papers cover regional studies, as well as national analysis for several countries - Argentina, Chile, México, and Uruguay-, and others, combine broader visions of Latin America.