Social Inclusion,Disciplining and Desire: 25 Years of Social Protection with a Gendered Face in Chile

• In Event: 40 years of Neoliberalism in Chile: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

Social protection schemes in Chile have evolved since 1990 from ad hoc, novel experiments that relied on the legacy of ideas, initiatives and forms of decentralized collaborations of non-governmental organizations during the 1980s, toward the institutionalized, comprehensive forms of today. A cornerstone of today’s system, congruent with neoliberal capitalist modernity, is its cultivation of clients as “subjects” who are autonomous, empowered, and enterprising. Moreover, the gender of the subjects in question – whether implicitly or explicitly stated -- has been part of their novelty. This paper focuses on social assistance programs, and in particular on novel anti-poverty programs which combine monetary transfers with training for “empowerment” and “employability.”
These so-called “rights”-centred and gender sensitive social assistance programs are celebrated as feminist inroads into the social policy arena with important gains for women. Sympathetic critics link the programs’ weaknesses to their lack of articulation with broader labour policies on the one hand, and with quality employment on the other. My paper offers a more fundamental critique. It builds on an interdisciplinary critical approach to explore the impact of gender sensitive-anti-poverty programs in relation to the restructuring of labour relations in Chile’s neoliberal capitalism. In the context of a steady increase in women’s participation in the labour force, and their overwhelming numbers in precarious forms of employment both in the private and public sectors, I ask: What has been the symbolic and material impact of 25 years of programs that promote women’s empowerment and employability? I argue that there is a hidden history to such programs: They are a critical component of the successful pursuit of labour flexibility which is a structural, rather than merely cyclical, component of Chile’s neoliberal capitalist modernity.

Author

• Veronica I Schild, University of Western Ontario