Working parents’ right to childcare in Chile

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Lorena Armijo,Rubén Ananias
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12758

RESEARCH

Working parents’right to childcare in Chile

Lorena Armijo

1

| Rubén Ananias

2

1

Center for Research in Social Sciences and

Youth (CISJU), Silva Henriquez Catholic

University, Santiago, Chile

2

Department of Industrial Engineering,

University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

Correspondence

Lorena Armijo, Universidad Cat

olica Silva

Henríquez, Carmen 350, Santiago of Chile,

833031.

Email: larmijog@ucsh.cl

Funding information

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding

from project ANID/FONDECYT/

Posdoctorado N. 3170459.

Abstract

Objective: This article examines Chilean working parents’

perceptions about the right to childcare, care needs, and

the future of this right.

Background: There is widespread debate about working

parents’care strategies and their capacity to reconcile

work and family. Latin American studies have concen-

trated on welfare regimens, social protection policies, and

flexibility in the labor market. However, few studies have

explored how workers exercise their right to childcare and

its consequences for the work–life dilemma.

Methods: Data were collected in 29 semistructured inter-

views with couples and eight discussion groups with work-

ing parents. A total of 109 people participated, 56 men

and 53 women.

Results: The findings show the ambivalent nature of

working parents’right to childcare, with limited time

and benefits, and the need to extend it to all workers in

the future.

Conclusion: Exercising the right to childcare is transitory

due to its short duration, and partially because it is meant

for working parents who have their social security pay-

ments up to date. Both characteristics are partly due to the

weakness of the institutional mechanisms that guarantee

the right to childcare. Support for the extension of this

right by those interviewed clashes with general distrust

toward making use of the right.

Implications: The findings suggest that State resources for

childcare are insufficient without education rights. Educa-

tion as a prolongation of care is a future demand of work-

ing parents with children beyond the pre-school stage.

KEYWORDS

Chile, the right to childcare (RTC), work–family policies, working

parents

Received: 15 December 2020 Revised: 26 June 2022 Accepted: 2 July 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12758

© 2022 National Council on Family Relations.

802 Family Relations. 2023;72:802–820.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare

INTRODUCTION

This article examines working parents’right to childcare (RTC), care needs, and their percep-

tions about the future of this right in Chile, starting with the debates about welfare systems and

work–family policies.

Latin American academics have focused on the work of caring within the conceptual frame-

work of welfare systems, maternalism, social care, defamiliarization, gender inequality in the

labor market, and the dual burden (Esquivel, 2011; Esquivel et al., 2012; Martínez

Franzoni, 2006; Pautassi, 2016; Staab, 2012). Chilean studies of work–family balance and asso-

ciated regulatory initiatives have focused on distributing the responsibilities of care and defamil-

iarization in the policies among welfare institutions (Comelin Fornes, 2014; Setién

Santamaría & Acosta Gonz

alez, 2010). Others have concentrated on the issues of job insecurity,

flexibility, and social inclusion, supporting the need for rights and social protection to be equal-

ized (Brega et al., 2015; Vel

asquez, 2009;Y



añez, 1999). The predominant literature has focused

on early childhood education and care (ECEC) and conditional cash transfer (CCT), whereas

few studies have examined the possibility of expanding on the RTC and the perspectives of the

protagonists themselves (Leiva Gomez & Comelin Fornes, 2015). There are also a few studies

that have explored workers exercising their RTC and the work–life dilemma.

We examine the subjective experience of childcare policy by asking whether childcare poli-

cies significantly affect working parents’subjective work–life balance experiences. This question

is crucial when considering public policy because the effects of childcare policies depend on

how workers exercise the right and strategies to address care contingencies. In this respect, the

State has an obligation to guarantee that care practices are protected by the right to care. If the

State guarantees this right, the sphere of enforceability is extended toward the different areas

(State, market, or family provision) that can change the dynamics of care (Pautassi, 2007).

This article argues that the RTC by working parents is based on changing mechanisms and

limits associated with the institutional design of the Chilean welfare regimen. These changing

mechanisms and designs develop into a general distrust by the public of private institutions in

charge of providing care and of working parents who profit from or use deceit to exercise these

rights. The subjective distrust and design of institutional welfare weaken the structure of the

RTC, necessitating a review of institutional inclusion mechanisms and everyday practices

related to childcare.

WORKING PARENTS’RIGHT TO CHILDCARE: A THEORETICAL

EXPLANATION

The right to give care is a parent’s legal responsibility (Knijn & Kremer, 1997). To varying

degrees, the policies are aimed at working parents established legal rights—for example, paren-

tal leaves—so they can prioritize the care of their children over the demands of their work.

Rights related to childcare also include a right—or an opportunity—not to be the child’s main

caregiver, as occurs with the use of publicly funded daycare centers. Thus, access to childcare

subsidized by the State and other benefits like cash or maternal leave, which are provided uni-

versally or are available at a reasonable price, come to be considered as a social right

(Leira, 2002). Yet differences at the national level make it difficult to agree on a common

framework in Western countries. The lack of universal benefit and quality childcare hampers

earnest discussion of RTC, and legislation in Latin America and the Caribbean mainly associ-

ates the RTC with the mother’s labor market status (United Nations Economic Commission

for Latin America and the Caribbean & UNICEF, 2011).

In Chile, the RTC has concentrated on childcare as a family right, a benefit paid by the

State to care for children in the home (Acosta et al., 2007). The RTC is experienced by working

CHILDCARE EXPERIENCE 803