Limits to Progress and Change: Reflections on Latin American Social Policy

Latin America is widely seen as being in a “post-neoliberal” phase of policy making. Growing discontent with Washington prescriptions in the 1990s and the rise to power of left and left-of-center governments in the majority of countries has led to a new focus on addressing long-standing social deficits. Across the region Latin American countries renewed efforts to tackle poverty rolling out cash transfer programs reaching one hundred million, and a raft of new policies have been adopted aiming for greater inclusivity in education, health, and social insurance.

This policy activism has seen positive results notably in reducing extreme poverty and (slightly) reducing inequality in thirteen out of seventeen Latin American countries studied (López-Calva 2010). Other measures such as the Brazilian federal government’s university quota system for black student entry have changed the social composition of higher education, while new Constitutions in Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2010) expand the social and cultural rights of over one million poor people.

From a gender perspective, the results have been mixed, and for some, disappointing given expectations raised in the post-dictatorship years. During and after the “Beijing process” Latin America experienced a striking wave of policy activism on gender issues with the domestication of international frameworks such as CEDAW and the Beijing Platform. Some results of these processes were reflected in the region’s achievement of the MDGs on political representation and gender equality in access to education. By the mid-1990s the pace of reform on gender issues had slowed, amidst a general climate of political disillusion. Women’s movements had also lost dynamism with their incorporation into the rapidly expanding world of nongovernmental organizations.

The post-neoliberal “moment” in Latin America raised hopes of a more favorable climate for taking feminist agendas forward. The persistence of marked gender inequalities in income, employment and assets, gender-based violence, and the failure to reach some key MDGs, notably maternal health, gave momentum to increased demands to act on feminist policy concerns. Some support was garnered from powerful bodies such as the World Bank which continued to emphasize the developmental advantages of “empowering women” as encapsulated in its 2012 World Development Report. With more money to spend thanks to the commodity boom in the 2000s, and a new consensus emerging that social inequality had to be put on the agenda, there was every reason to expect more gender aware policies with the return of social policy to regional priorities. So how, then, have women fared in the new policy environment?

This special section provides four perspectives on recent developments in Latin American social policy.¹ Together they illustrate the region’s diversity and warn of the dangers of over generalization. They show how the space for policy activism is variable, and is determined as much by the political context as by the prevailing economic conditions. Two articles concern Chile, a high performer in terms of growth with a recent average of 6 percent per annum, and with the most extensive welfare coverage in the region. It has also seen several waves of social sector reform begun in the Pinochet years, and continued under the three Concertación administrations that governed between 1990 and 2010. Although inequality remains a blight on Chilean progress, the coalition governments widened access to welfare and achieved notable gains in poverty reduction.

Silke Staab’s study highlights three areas of Chilean social policy where there has been progress toward meeting women’s welfare needs: the recent expansion of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services; reform of parental leave, and the introduction of child-rearing credits into the pension system. While these are all positive reforms that will benefit women, Staab argues that on closer analysis, feminist voices have been absent from the policy-making processes and as a consequence women’s strategic needs have not been addressed. Neither the expansion of ECEC nor the extension of paternal leave have addressed the underlying maternalism that is notably present in much of Latin American social policy and both fail to...