The gendered political economy of Chile’s rebellious discontent: lessons from forty-five years of neoliberal governance

ABSTRACT

Chile's unprecedented citizen mobilizations of 2019, and subsequent political developments, have revealed the social and institutional limits of Latin America's paradigmatic case of neo-developmentalism. They have raised critical questions about the nature, reach and effects, of a 30-year progressive program of ‘growth with equity’ resulting in profound inequalities and political disenchantment for the majority. The article argues for a gendered cultural political economy approach to understand the impact of neoliberalism, best conceived as a governing rationality, that is now facing a generalized crisis of legitimacy. It examines the role of the Constitution of 1980 in enshrining in law neoliberal structural reforms, and setting the political and institutional bases for subordinating the substance of society and individuals to the laws of the market. The article shows that this marketization has transformed fundamental taken-for-granted social relations of reproduction which make markets possible, with harsh effects for the majority of Chilean women..

KEYWORDS:

• Chile
• social rebellion
• mature neoliberalism
• gender
• Constitution of 1980

Acknowledgements

I thank Charmain Levy, Manuel Larrabure, Aparna Sundar, Ted Schrecker, and Malcolm Blincow, as well as the three anonymous reviewers, for their substantial comments and suggestions. From October to December 2019, I was Visiting International Researcher at the School of Psychology of the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile, with funding from the National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, CONYCIT), Ministry of Education, Government of Chile. I am grateful for the support and intellectual stimulation of my colleagues Maria Isabel Reyes and Luisa Castaldi during what turned out to be a singular moment in Chile’s history.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Ordinary Chileans who were interviewed by the media as they watched subsequent mobilizations unfold on their way to and from work – when it was still possible to move across the city of Santiago – expressed it succinctly: ‘Se veia venir’ (We saw it coming). Indeed, surveys conducted during the early days of the demonstrations showed an approval rate of over 80 percent.

2 In this article, I rely on my previous research as well as participant observation conducted in Viña del Mar and Santiago during the months of October to December 2019.

3 On November 4, 2019, the Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos de Chile, INDH (National Institute of Human Rights of Chile) reported 4,364 detainees, of these 670 women, 3,060 men, and most alarming, 479 children and adolescents, both male and female. In 2020, 4,681 human rights violations by police and military personnel had been registered by the Ministerio Publico (Public Ministry), though most of these cases languish in the courts. A shocking legacy of wanton police brutality was the high number (460) of catastrophic eye injuries registered during the months of demonstrations, according to INDH. On October 16, 2020, Sergio Micco, Director of the INDH, concluded that these incidents resulted in the most serious, systematic violations of human rights since the return to democracy in 1990 (INDH, 2020a).

4 The feminist critique of political economy that theorizes the links between social reproduction and capitalism is longstanding. For an overview of its present renewal see, Ferguson (2020); Bhattacharya (2017).

5 To date my long-standing research in Chile has focused on the gendered configuration and effects of transformations in statecraft, specifically on the neoliberalisation of political subjects and the social state (Schild, 2000, 2007, 2013). My overall methodological strategy is based on grounded, contextualized exploration of the making of active social policy as a key dimension of the progressive agenda of centre-left, or Concertación, governments and centre-right governments.

6 For this purpose, I rely extensively on recent official statistical surveys and give primacy to studies from Chile, many of which have remained overlooked or untranslated to date. All translations are mine.

7 These demands were part of earlier mobilizations, the so-called revolución de los pinguinos (the Penguin Revolution), which had captured the world’s attention. Spearheaded by high school students in 2006 whose school uniform had given them the name of ‘penguins’, nationwide demonstrations had demanded an end to the Ley Organica Constitucional de Enseñanza (the Constitutional Educational Law), or LOCE. Introduced in 1989 by the outgoing dictatorship, the law guaranteed the perpetuation of a system of privatized secondary and post-secondary education, and although modified in 2009 during Bachelet’s first term in office, the fundamental market driven criteria remained untouched.

8 Quoted in Atria (2013, p. 41). Key limiting requirements included: the proscription of ‘Marxist’ parties; the law guaranteeing that one third of senators would be designated; the introduction of a binomial electoral system designed to limit the role of parties and political representation; the granting of unprecedented presidential powers; and the creation of an independent Constitutional Tribunal that would oversee legal reforms. Most significantly, the Constitution enshrined the requirement of super majorities – 2/3 or 5/6 approval – for amending any of the charter’s clauses or its organic laws. The binomial electoral system would only be abolished in 2015 during Bachelet’s second government. Several of these were removed in piecemeal fashion over the past 30 years, but the requirements on presidential powers, the Constitutional Tribunal, and super majorities all remain.

9 For example, the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI) has been a pioneer in environmental organizations waging struggles for an end to ‘zones of sacrifice’. Women have also been at the forefront of local and regional organizations struggling for water as a basic human right, such as Patagonia Sin Represas, Alerta Isla Riesco, Defendamos Chiloé, Alto Maipo, Movimiento Defensa por el Acceso al Agua, la Tierra y Protección del Medio Ambiente (Modatima), Defensa Caimanes, and Asamblea de Freirina.

10 The literature on the configuration of Chile’s early and paradigmatic neoliberal project is extensive. See, for example, Letelier (1976), Valdés (1995), and especially the more recent and comprehensive study by Huneeus (2000).

11 See, for example, Lagos (2016). For a critical review, see, Leiva (2008, especially Chapters 4 and 9), and Garretón (2012).

12 A recent literature on neoliberalism offers a complex account of the configuration of the Chilean variant and its role in transnational intellectual circuits, including the neglected story of James Buchanan and the Mont Pelerin Society. See, for example, MacLean (2017); Whyte (2019); Plehwe et al. (2020).

13 In 2019, China was the main market for Chilean exports, 31.1 percent, with the U.S. a distant second, with 14.1 percent of exports. Although copper continues to dominate Chilean exports, with 45 percent of total exports, so-called non-traditional commodities like timber, wood pulp, seasonal fruits and nuts and wine, fresh, chilled and frozen fish and salmon, are among the country’s top ten exports. Figures from, Trading Economics (2020).

14 The Plan stipulates four fundamental pillars: collective action exclusively at the enterprise level; strikes that do not paralyze production; parallel labour organizations ostensibly fostering competition; and finally, the depoliticization of unions. This means that in Chile there is no effective right to strike, and that in a highly ‘flexibilized’ labour context, the struggle for decent work and living wages is ongoing. The attempted labour reform of Bachelet’s second term (2014–2018) did not include the issue of quality of employment, and maintained untouched the stipulation that strikes occur at the level of the enterprise only. In other words, the fundamentals of the Pinochet era Plan Laboral remained unchanged. As of 2015, the rates of unionization remained low, at half of what they were in 1973, or 14.2 percent. 53 percent of unions had 40 members or less, and only 8.4 percent of unions were covered by collective agreements (Narbona, 2015).

15 The most important sectors of Chile’s export-based economy, i.e., mining, agriculture, forestry, and fishing are owned and controlled by large conglomerates. These are the sectors that depend on unregulated and poorly paid workers to get their products to export markets. In particular, agriculture, hospitality, domestic service, retail and fishing concentrate the highest numbers of minimum or below minimum wage work. See the chart based on the national survey, CASEN, in Durán and Kremerman (2020, p. 10).

16 With the reversal of the land reform during the dictatorship, changes in land property rights, and the extension of land property rights to foreign entities, an estimated 60 percent of land was removed from small peasant and collective production. A further 50 percent of small producers was forced to sell lands for lack of technical assistance (FAO, 1998, pp. 206–207). These changes led to a radical transformation of Chile’s rural sector. It should be noted that this process also involved a loss of Mapuche land to private owners and large forest cultivation. For a comprehensive analysis of these transformations, see Gómez and Echeñique (1988); Valdés and Araujo (1999); Kay (2006, 2015); Bellisario (2007).

17 More recently, women jostle with other vulnerable categories, principally undocumented migrants and indigenous peoples, for positions at the lowest rungs of seasonal, poorly paid, and often dangerous work. See Valdés (1987, 2020). As the long-standing research by Ximena Valdés makes clear, these rural transformations have also created new political opportunities for rural and indigenous women. The emblematic National Rural and Indigenous Women’s Association, ANAMURI, for example, which was created in 1998 to struggle for rural women’s labour rights and protections, is a key protagonist in present national and regional demands for a socially and environmentally sustainable development model. See, Cid Aguayo and Latta (2015).

18 For a recent, comprehensive review of policies in the area of poverty reduction since 1990 and their cultural political effects, see Ramos Zincke (2016). As I have shown, this policy area has been gendered in its configuration and effects (Schild, 2002, 2007). Furthermore, my research has argued that the transformation of female clients into workers and consumers has been a deliberate state policy since 1990. See, Schild (2013, 2015a).

19 The private health system, for example, has experienced a boom in great part because it has been a direct beneficiary of the amendments and expansions introduced by Concertación governments that aimed to guarantee health access for certain types of illnesses, e.g. Plan AUGE now GES, Plan de Garantías Explícitas en Salud (Plan of Explicit Guarantees in Health). See, Goyenechea and Sinclaire (2013).

20 According to figures from Chile’s Central Bank in 2019, the level of household debt in relation to income reached a historic record of 74.5 percent. For the latest figures linking low wages to debt, see Durán and Kremerman (2020). Studies have persistently shown that Chileans identify overwhelmingly as ‘middle class’, although this seems to be more fantasy than reality, given that large sectors of society must subsidize their lives through heavy debt loads. See, for example, Pérez-Roa (2019); Espinoza and Barozet (2008); PNUD (2017).

21 For up-to-date figures, see Gálvez and Kremerman (2020). In the case of health, ‘freedom of choice’ is more easily accessed by those who are low risk, young, healthy, and with high incomes, i.e., approximately 17–18 percent of the population. The rest, that is, ‘women and those who are poorer, older, and sicker’ are covered by Fondo Nacional de Salud, FONASA FONASA. In 2015, the average premium of the private ISAPRE health plans was equivalent to 45 percent of the minimum wage (Crispi et al., 2020). For an analysis of privatized health in Chile, see Goyenechea and Sinclaire (2013).

22 For a recent analysis of the present political crisis see, for example, Huneeus (2018).

23 The trend toward increasingly massive and diverse feminist mobilizations began in 2015 with Chile’s Me Too movement and demands for free abortion, and in 2016 with student mobilizations against sexual harassment and violence. These were followed by the historic march of May 16, 2018 – known as the Mayo Feminista, in reference to the student rebellions of May 1968 − calling for an end to sexual violence in universities and for a dismantling of its sexist structures (Segovia, 2020).

24 Daniela López, Director of Fundación Nodo XX quoted in Segovia (2020).

25 According to official statistics, women’s participation in the labour force increased from 35 percent in 1990–1953 percent in early 2020, to fall once again to 41.3 percent in the trimester May to July 2021 (INE, 2021). Furthermore, the majority of women work in paid domestic services and in retail, either in small businesses or markets, two of the sectors most affected by lengthy lockdowns. Furthermore, according to the most recent national survey, CASEN 2017, an estimated 42 percent of all households in Chile are headed by women, a figure that reaches 53 percent among the poorest households. This suggests that figures for formal employment do not capture those informal activities that women, including today many immigrant women, are compelled to engage in to make ends meet. For a timely and informative overview of the impact on Chile’s women of the pandemic and government policy, see Mujeres en tiempos de esperanza, crisis y pandemia, edited by Bórquez Polloni and published by the Library of Chile’s National Congress (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile), 2021.

26 Women’s work in the public sector is also concentrated in highly feminized areas: for example, 74.1 percent work in health provision, and 72.2 percent in teaching (Barriga et al., 2020). Combining public workers and career functionaries, Chile’s public sector is the smallest in Latin America, and represents approximately 7 percent of Chile’s total labour force. Here too, women in the public sector are the most precarious and poorly paid workers (de la Puente 2011, p. 14). See, also, Yañez & Rojas, 2017.

27 Chile does not have a minimum hourly wage. The minimum or basic monthly wage for full time work as of January 2021, is 326,500 pesos (USD390). The working hours are among the longest in the world, or 45 h spread over five or six days. Studies based on Chile’s official statistics show that many workers work in excess of the statutory maximum, that this monthly wage only covers 69 percent of what a family of three needs to be above the poverty line, and that a significant number of workers do not earn the minimum (Durán & Kremerman, 2020; Kremerman & Sáez, 2021).

28 Official statistics suggest that on average women provide over 41 h per week of unremunerated domestic and care activities. For men, the average figure is slightly over 19 h (Barriga et al., 2020, p. 7).

29 Valdés et al. (forthcoming 2020, p. 54; 2015). Migrant workers, predominantly from Peru, Bolivia and Haiti who have proper status in the country, earn on average 276,000 pesos (USD330), while those without papers earn on average 184,000 pesos (USD220) (Valdés et al., forthcoming 2020, p. 54).

30 According to the comprehensive analysis of national employment statistics found in the document, ‘No es Amor, es trabajo no remunerado’, of the 1,079,208 jobs created in the past 10 years which are performed by women, 60 per cent correspond to precarious employment: 30.3 percent are subcontracted jobs, and 29.7 percent are forms of self-employment. Self-employment includes home based textile production. Chile was the first country to sign a free trade agreement with China and during the period 2005–2016 saw a major restructuring of the textile industry, a highly feminized, long-standing sector of industrial production (See, Fundación Sol 2017).

31 See, Durán et al. (2016).

32 Only since the Bachelet reforms of 2008 did the business sector make a contribution of 1.53 percent through a disability and survivors’ insurance, the Seguro de Invalidez y Sobreviviencia (SIS). The reforms also created a ‘solidarity pillar’, or subsidized benefit for pensioners falling below the poverty line. This addition has not made much difference, forcing many seniors to continue working well past retirement age to supplement their miserly pensions. The increasingly militant and massive No+AFP movement must be seen in relation to the failure of Concertación governments to change a pension scheme that condemns millions to a life of poverty in old age. For the most recent, comprehensive overview of pensions, see Gálvez and Kremerman (2020).

33 Well before the present debacle of the AFPs, official figures from the regulatory agency Superintendencia de Pensiones revealed a history of illegal investments by AFPs, as well as the names of political figures from the centre-left and centre-right who, after leaving office, have joined the boards of directors of AFPs. As Daniel Matamala points out, the political donations made by corporations to electoral campaigns also come from funds collected by the AFPs. See Matamala (2016) and Weibel Barahona (2017).

34 From Sergio Jara Román, Piñera y los leones de Sanhattan (2018), Chapter 3, published in Jara Román (2020).

35 An estimated 80 percent of Chilean adults have significant personal debt, and 5 million people of a population of 18 million have defaulted on their debt (Pérez-Roa and Gómez, 2020; Banco Central, 2018). Studies show that personal debt is a strategy widely used by middle-class and popular sector households to increase the monthly household, and that women play a fundamental role (Pérez-Roa & Troncoso Pérez, 2019).

36 Quoted in Goyenechea and Sinclaire (2013, p. 35).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Verónica Schild

Born in Chile, Verónica Schild is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada. She has written extensively on feminism and the women’s movement in Chile and Latin America, on market citizenship, and on the neoliberalization of Latin American states .