Social Investment Policies in Chile and Latin America: Towards Equal Opportunities for Women and Children?

Abstract

Social investment ideas are increasingly permeating social and care policy-making in Latin America. In this article, I analyse a variety of instruments which have been used to 'invest in children' across a range of Latin American countries to then zoom in on Chile, where early childhood education and care have attained a prominent place on the welfare agenda in recent years. This policy interest materialised in 'Chile Grows With You', an integrated child development strategy whose title resonates strongly with the global narrative on social investment. Engaging with the programme's aim of creating 'equal opportunities from the cradle', I discuss the transformative potential and the limitations of childcare service expansion in a highly unequal context.

‘The Greatest of Equalisers’: A Critical Review of International Organisations’ Views on Early Childhood Care and Education

“…In brief, even when assuming that ECCE levels the playing field by equalising human capital, the persistence of possible 'unfairness' in the playing field during life paths makes it hard to ascertain the equalising power of ECCE (Staab, 2010).…”

“…Recently, a gradual shift in redistributive policies towards interventions in early childhood has been noticed, coinciding with a paradigmatic shift from equalising outcomes to equalising opportunities (Staab, 2010). This shift can be noticed both in developed countries (e.g., Council of the European Union, 2009) and in developing countries.…”

Protest, citizenship and democratic renewal: the student movement in Chile

“…This was partly for reasons of consistency -by the early 1990s, it was simply impossible to consider social reform in Chile without some element of marketisation (Staab 2010). But it was also for reasons in inheritance.…”

Towards Post-neoliberal Resource Politics? The International Political Economy (IPE) of Oil and Copper in Brazil and Chile

“…Chile follows a selfreinforcing, path-dependent trajectory, wherein Pinochet's radical reforms to withdraw the state from economic management have become obstacles for economic policies that can address both competitiveness and social inequality. This is a very accurate account of Chile if we examine the conscious political choices made by Concertación elites to hail the 'success' of neoliberalism as a growth paradigm in retaining macroeconomic stability and growth rates alongside key social policy reforms (Taylor 2006;Brooks 2009;Staab 2010Staab , 2012. However, the combination of state ownership and private capital participation in the mining industry complicate the simplistic narrative of self-reinforcing trajectory towards neoliberalism in Chile.…”