Chin-Ming Lin Ofelia Pei-Chung Wang and Carolina Yi-Chun Kuo Tamkang University

 How Chilean women’s family role was compromised by their pursuing responsibility in supporting their children’s education?  How Chilean families and women’s family roles were affected by women’s taking part in labor force?  How public policies regarding families in Chile, such as its Chile Solidario program, are changing and will they be sufficient for meeting the demands of the so-called “second demographic transition”?

 Will the advantage of marriage in raising children disappear when cohabitation and single parents are increasing as happened in Chile?  Regarding the reproduction of economic inequalities, children who grew up in economically advantaged settings, and with both biological parents, are less likely to be poor and more likely to overcome economic uncertainly than children raised by single parents, in more deprived settings—the reproduction of family structure and economic wellbeing probably takes place in Chile too, but no empirical studies in this area

 Only 3% of women of reproductive age were cohabiting in 1970, whereas in 2002, 11% were— cohabitation grew three times. However, since the 1990s cohabitation started to increase among groups of high socioeconomic status in Chile  More importantly, In 1970, 56% of women in the age interval were single, a proportion that grew to 67% in 2002—the decline of teen fertility has been less pronounced than the decline in all the other age groups

 The return from education investment is decided by family income (I) and personal ability (A): Y = Y(I,A|Z), where Y is return from education investment, and Z is parameter affecting the effectiveness of education investment.  Overall, Chile presents relatively low intergenerational income mobility as compared to other developing as well as developed countries  intergenerational persistence of inequality: children are poor mostly because their parents are poor

 Attitude regarding the proper roles of men and women in Chilean society seemingly no longer follow a fully traditional pattern—women’s place belongs in the family  An increasing intergenerational mobility in time as younger generations achieved higher level of education regardless of their parent’s income or socioeconomic levels. Given larger enrollment and better facilities in Chile’s schooling system, we can still infer, somewhat from the evidence, that many Chilean working mothers are endeavoring to increase their children’s achievement in education

 Chile has seen relatively lower rates of female labor force participation among low-income groups as compared to their counterparts in higher income brackets (see figure next page)  Nevertheless, Chile has made remarkable progress in developing public institutions, policies and mechanisms for the promotion of women and gender equality in the last two decades  However, Most programs in Chile have centered on education and early childhood development, putting less emphasis on the needs of parents, particularly those of working mothers.

 The first component of the program reached households in extreme poverty (through a proxy means testing) and provides them with a two year period of psycho-social support through a local social worker.  The second component works on the supply side, by ensuring coordination among different programs.  Significant and consistent increases in the likelihood of having all children aged 4-5 year olds enrolled in a pre-school.

 Recent fast increase of the ratio of cohabitation and a rising number of children born outside of marriage may have hindered educational achievement for children in lower income families, especially those with female household heads  Notwithstanding the dilemma encountered by Chilean women and relatively low labor force participation rates, Chile’s experience of mainstreaming gender in the public sector is one of the most innovative and ambitious in Latin America