New Challenges to Social Inclusion in Chile

In the new Social Inclusion Index launched by Americas Quarterly, Chile ranks number 1 in the hemisphere, outpacing its neighbors in terms economic growth, political and civil rights, and access to education, housing and formal employment across gender and race and ethnicity.
While an important achievement, there are warning signs.

Relatively speaking, Chile ranks at or near the top in matters of access to education by race and gender, political and civil rights and percent of the economy invested in social programs.

For example, differences by race in access to secondary education are small. A little over 90% of white Chileans compared to just over 89% of Chileans of Afro or Indigenous descent are enrolled in secondary school. Differences across race/ethnicity on those living on more than $4 per day (88% versus 81%) are also low compared to the rest of the region.

But compared to other countries in the region--such as Guatemala, Bolivia or Peru--Chile has a much smaller Indigenous or Afro-descendant population. In Guatemala, rates of indigenous and Afro-descendant enrollment in secondary school are 23% lower than white Guatemalans; in Bolivia the difference is 15%, and in Peru 17%. Differences in poverty (over $4 per day) are equally stark with differences of 35% for Guatemala, 16% for Bolivia and 17% for Peru.

To be fair, Chile has never faced the challenges of integrating a diverse population spread across a largely ungoverned geography--and the tragic legacy of subjugation and racism. But the scale itself of exclusion today should not matter.

Race-based differences in access to basic public and private goods constitute a severe block to social inclusion. Chile’s robust economic growth rate of 3.8% over the last 10 years and effective, targeted social programs (at 14% of the economy spent on social programs Chile is fifth in the region) have helped to raise the living standards of everyone.

Social inclusion is more than economic growth, social investment and access to public goods. The long-term sustainability of social inclusion depends on the rights and capacity of citizens to participate in and affect policy.

In this, while Chile remains a leader, there are strains. For one, the level of citizen empowerment (the sense that citizens feel that they understand and can affect politics events) in Chile is below that of the United States, Uruguay and Nicaragua. Chile ranks third in the region in its citizens confidence that government will listen to them.

Recent popular protests go to the heart of sense of citizen political and social disenfranchisement. And they point to the next challenge for social inclusion in Chile: reforming the political system to better address rising citizen demands.

This matters for more than just politics and democracy. For while Chile may rank in the region as one of the most socially inclusive, among the industrialized global elite of OECD nations, Chile remains the most unequal. Changing that demands addressing the political constraints that the country now faces.

Christopher Sabatini is the Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly and senior director of policy of Americas Society/Council of the Americas.