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Gender and the state in rural Chile
BUN Latin Am. Res., Vol. 16. Fio. I, pp. 97-105, 1997 Copyright 0 1997 Society for Latm Amencan Studies Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain 026l-3050197 $17.00 + 0.00
SO261-3050(96)00019-8
Gender and the State in Rural Chile ANN
MATEAR
School ?f Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, Wiltshire Building, Hampshire Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 2BU, UK Abstract ~ This paper focuses on SERNAM, the state institution responsible for the incorporation of gender into public policy in Chile, and the actions taken by the state to benefit women employed in the modern agricultural sector. It charts the emergence of the demands for such an institution by the women’s movement, and the creation of SERNAM as an integral part of the transition to democracy. In particular, the paper analyses the Programme for the Children of the Temporerus, which is a unique state-led initiative to provide childcare facilities to enable women to enter the seasonal labour market during the summer months. The paper explores the complex relations between gender, the state, capitalist agriculture and patriarchal structures, with the aim of highlighting the sometimes unexpected convergence of interests, and the points of conflict. Copyright 0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies Key words ~ Chile, state, gender, agriculture
INTRODUCTION Ironically, as the minimalist state rolls back on virtually all fronts, gender seemsto be an exception, In recent years, state institutions to plan and/or implement specific policies have been established in many Latin American countries. They are often the result of pressure from feminist groups within the women’s movement for the state to increasingly regulate gender relations and end discrimination in the public and private spheres. This paper focuses on Chile and analyses the complexities and paradoxes involved in integrating gender planning into state policies for implementation in the privately-owned modern agricultural sector. This particular combination of gender planning to benefit women and capitalist, export-oriented development open up complex debates on the role of the various state institutions involved in the process and the shifting relations between capitalist and patriarchal structures. The Chilean agricultural sector was transformed during the 1980sto produce a dynamic, modern sector oriented towards export markets rather than to domestic consumption. This resulted in intensive useof the land and changesin employment patterns. The demands for labour are increasingly dictated by the needs of capital and agro-industries. Many of the jobs which have been created are seasonal, temporary and unevenly distributed over the productive cycle. Seasonallabour has always been a feature of agricultural production in Chile, but the temporerasare the product of quite different, new labour relations. Informal employment enables employers to take advantage of non-unionised workers who, on temporary contracts, have fewer rights and benefits than permanent workers, thereby reducing the costs to the employer. It is no coincidence that the majority of these workers are women.
98 GENDER
Ann Matear RELATIONS
AND
THE CHILEAN
STATE
During the years of military rule, rural women entered the labour force in unprecedented numbers and, importantly, their social and political participation were also transformed. The mobilisation of women in opposition to the dictatorship occurred predominantly in urban areas, but women in rural areas also organised and linked their demands to the prodemocracy movement. In July 1986, at Punta de Tralca (Region V), the Departamento Femenino de la Comision National Campesina (CNS) elaborated the ‘Demanda de la Mujer Rural’ which called on rural women to organise and mobilise for democracy (Valdes and Weinstein, 1993). After the plebiscite in 1988, the restoration of formal politics eclipsed the direct actions of the social movements. Elites within the women’s movement emerged with considerable political bargaining power, and they formed the Women’s Alliance for Democracy (Concertacion de Mujeres por la Democracia).’ This parallelled the mainstream coalition of political parties which formed the democratic government after the 1989 elections (Matear, 1996). The Women’s Alliance proposed the creation of an institution to coordinate gender in social policy, which could take account of the diversity of women’s needs and demands. They demanded that women be incorporated into the process of political, economic and social participation, and produced a series of blueprints for sectoral policies to be implemented by the new democratic government (Montecino and Rossetti, 1990). The document also analysed the situation of rural women, and they formulated a political programme for women to be implemented by the future democratic government. The subcommission recognised the need for different policies for women in the rural and urban sectors and also acknowledged differences within the rural sector regarding peasants, wage earners, artisans and indigenous women, each of which require policies adapted to the regional and local reality. As a result of the pressure from the women’s movement, there are currently two state institutions which plan and implement policies affecting women living or working in rural areas. INDAP (Instituto National de Desarrollo Agropecuario), a division of the Ministry of Agriculture which is responsible for small-scale production, created the ‘Area Mujer’ in January 199 1, to specifically address the issues facing rural women which were not covered within INDAP’s mainstream programmes. Under the Aylwin government, INDAP focused on alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas and on meeting the demands for training and technical assistance which had been unmet during the dictatorship (Aranda, 1992). SERNAM (Servicio National de la Mujer), was created on 3rd January 1991 with the remit of incorporating a gender perspective into public po1icy.2 SERNAM aims to improve the condition of women in society by addressing immediate gender needs such as access to employment, housing, education or credit. A more long-term objective is to improve the position of women in society compared to men by addressing structural gender inequalities, which involves eliminating institutional forms of discrimination, alleviating women’s responsibility for the home and childcare, and ending the sexual division of labour. SERNAM was established with non-ministerial status, therefore it cannot implement its own policies or programmes, but instead has the remit of proposing measures to various ministries which may be incorporated into future policies. This has the advantage of allowing SERNAM to present the ‘big picture’ of the diverse structural factors which discriminate against women in an integrated, multisectoral manner - enabling it to attack
Gender and the state in rural Chile
99
simultaneously on all fronts. However, the recommendations may also be rejected or assigned low priority, either for financial or ideological reasons. SERNAM has only an administrative budget so any measures which it recommends must be financed by the ministries which implement them. This clearly reduces the ministries’ budgets for actions which they consider priorities. Gender inequalities stem from, and are reinforced by, women’s subordinate position in the domestic sphere, the social/economic sphere and the political sphere (Moser, 1994; Young, 1991). Influenced by the work of Caroline Moser, planners in SERNAM considered it inadequate to address gender discrimination from a purely sectoral perspective. To redress gender discrimination in the housing sector, or education, or employment in isolation might well improve the condition of women, but it would almost certainly do little to change their position in society vis-ri-vis men. Consequently, SERNAM attempted to address gender subordination from a multi-se&oral perspective, in the areas of employment, legislation, education. housing, health with the aim of promoting long-term social change in attitudes and behaviour. SERNAM’s operations were structured along three lines: (i)
the elimination of legal and sociocultural barriers which impede equal rights for women and their equal participation in society, (ii) the integration of women into the labour market and to contribute to improving the quality of life for them and their families, (iii) actions to support and strengthen the family unit. These lines of action involved both sectoral and intersectoral coordination and planning, combined with and supported by programmes to target actions at specific groups within the female population (Matear, 1995). SERNAM implemented several actions in the rural sector. In 1991, SERNAM and the Heritage Ministry (Ministerio de Bienes Nacionales) signed an agreement of interinstitutional cooperation and support for the Proyecto Masivo de Saneamiento de Titulos de Dominio Rurales a Nivel National, Gnanced by the World Bank. This programme aimed to strengthen women’s role in rural development by regulating the ownership of land and property, and SERNAM concentrated its efforts on those female heads of households who were eligible. This was important because women were frequently unable to demonstrate headship, and this was an essential criteria for gaining agricultural credit or participating in development programmes. SERNAM also contributed to the bill to reform the Labour Code which became law in September 1993. This bill contained specific provision for the seasonal workers in the fruit industry and required employers to provide hygienic facilities for food preparation, transport to the fields or packing plant, and sleeping accommodation for those workers who required it near the place of employment. SERNAM proposed a bill to introduce changes in the legal capacity of married women and redress the discriminatory situation which currently exists. Women could not gain access to credit without their husbands’ permission and they were unable to guarantee the loans since their goods legally belonged to their husbands. SERNAM collaborated with INDAP in a thorough investigation of government policies for agriculture at national and regional levels, and how these affected women in both modern and traditional agricultural production3 Furthermore, SERNAM has commissioned research into employment trends in the modern agricultural sector and has undertaken in-house research into programmes (including their own) which provide childcare. Collaboration
100
Ann Matear
between the two institutions varied greatly between one region and another, largely depending on the importance given to women within INDAP’s regional operations. The division of responsibilities and policy between SERNAM and INDAP assumed a clear distinction between campesinas and temporeras, and that the two categories did not overlap. The reality clearly does not support this assumption (Venegas, 1992) and, consequently, the assignation of tasks between the institutions was unsatisfactory for the following reasons. Firstly, SERNAM’s actions were biased towards urban women or women working in rural areas, through the Childcare Programme. As a result, the campesinas and non-urban temporeras were left on the margins of mainstream policies, such as employment training or microenterprise, which were channelled through SERNAM to the various ministries. Consequently their needs were not identified or represented. The temporeras were targeted in SERNAM’s proposals for the Labour Reforms and again benefited from the Childcare Programme. These women were wage workers in the modern agricultural sector, who mainly lived in rural shanty towns or travelled daily to the fields from the urban periphery. The Childcare Programme used municipal infrastructure in small and medium-sized towns, rather than install nurseries at the packing plants. In this way, urban dwellers benefited more than women living and working in rural areas. SERNAM’s actions to benefit peasant women were limited to the regulation of land rights which facilitated their access to credit and other benefits available to producers. The population of the traditional rural sector has long been marginalised from mainstream policies and the benefits associated with the modernisation process. SERNAM was established to incorporate women into the process of national development, yet this sector of the female population was inadequately included in its sphere of action. Conversely, INDAP’s remit is limited to the peasant population. This institutional limitation circumscribed INDAP’s ability to act in benefit of rural women temporarily employed in the fruit export sector. The temporeras fall outside INDAP’s remit since they are not smallscale producers but are a rural semi-proletariat. SERNAM developed a team of experts in the areas of housing, employment, justice, health and education to plan and coordinate policies with the respective ministries. However, it failed to establish formal mechanisms for sectoral work with INDAP until the appointment of a sectoral representative in 1994 - a full four years after it began operations. The lack of attention to the rural sector was, in part, due to SERNAM’s budget restrictions which meant that areas had to be prioritised, as the team of sectoral representatives was gradually pieced together.4 Within INDAP, the Area Mujer (Women’s Unit) was extremely well organised and staffed by women with a long history of participation in the women’s movement and in NGOs (often specialising in rural issues) during the dictatorship. Consequently, this was the one area which it was relatively uncomplicated for SERNAM to leave uncovered. The two institutions collaborated and cooperated well, albeit at a personal and informal level. However, the success or failure of policy initiatives affecting the rural female population cannot depend on personal ties which only exist as long as the personnel are in their respective positions. It would have been advantageous if SERNAM and INDAP had established institutional agreements which outlined respective responsibilities and areas of mutual collaboration on the issues facing rural women. Moreover, it is arguable that this process could have been facilitated by the common background of many of the women occupying high-level positions within both institutions at national and regional levels.
Gender and the state in rural Chile THE CHILDCARE
PROGRAMME
FOR THE CHILDREN
101 OF TEMPORERAS
I focus my analysis on the Childcare Programme for the Children of Temporeras. The programme was, in itself, a practical initiative which reached a relatively small number of the temporeras who required such a facility, and it involved relatively few resources. It undisputably provides a solution to the problem of inadequate or unaffordable childcare, a factor which more frequently than any other excludes women from the labour market. However, it raises issues which go far beyond the scope of the programme itself. These include structural obstacles to female participation in the labour force; the division of responsibilities and benefits between the state, the private sector and the workers themselves of women entering employment. The success of the women’s movement in pressuring for the creation of a state institution demonstrated that, if women’s gender-specific interests and demands can reflect and complement national interests, they are more likely to be incorporated into policy-making (Matear, 1996). However, I propose that, in this case, the way in which the childcare provision has been made serves the particular demands of capital and the export-oriented economic model for a temporary labour force, more than it meets women’s gender-specific needs to enter the labour force. Childcare provision for workers in the fruit export sector of the economy is a relatively recent phenomenon in Chile. As women entered the seasonal rural labour force in increasing numbers during the 1980s a significant gap grew between the demand for childcare provision and the facilities available (Herrera and Zuniga, 1993). In areas where there are few employment opportunities during the winter months, and where the wages earned in the peak season often have to keep the family for the rest of the year, economic necessity forces women to work shifts of up to 18 hours a day. The lack of childcare provision means, in effect, that children are often left alone, in the care of older siblings or neighbours, or taken to the fields and packing plants. These unsatisfactory solutions result in above-average incidences of injuries, malnutrition and juvenile crime (SERNAM, 1993).5 Because of limited resources in the public sector, it was necessary for SERNAM to make optimum and innovative use of existing facilities in the various state institutions which work with children, and municipal facilities which were empty during the school holidays. The programme was implemented in the fruit export regions which provided childcare for the temporeras during the peak season (December-March).6 In Chile, the law requires that all employers with more than 20 female employees have to provide childcare facilities for under-twos. In reality, this law is often flouted or a maximum of 19 women are employed. Affordable childcare is available (though limited) through state-run nurseries and after-school clubs, but places are not allocated on the basis of whether the parent is employed, or in which area of the economy they work. Women workers are also concentrated in the textile industry or in the service sector yet these have not been singled out for specific provision. In part, the special provision for the fruit export sector could be explained by lower coverage of nursery places in rural areas. However, many temporeras are not of rural origin but travel to the packing plants from urban areas on a daily basis. Moreover, the programme uses municipal schools, and therefore the centres are located in small and medium-sized towns rather than rural areas. It may be because the peak period of employment for the temporeras coincides with the summer school vacation. Yet, other sectors of the economy continue to employ women during that period without making any special provision. Clearly, these explanations alone are
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insufticient to account for the state’s provision of childcare to support women entering paid employment in privately-owned enterprises. The programme was intended to be a tripartite arrangement with the involvement of state institutions, the municipalities and the private sector. However, employers demonstrated little formal commitment to the programme, and they did not perceive that their responsibility for and contribution to the provision of childcare facilities should be commensurate with the benefit they received from this. The bottom line on the employers’ contribution was that they knew the programme would go ahead with or without their contribution and, while they benefited from increased productivity when the workers were relaxed about their children’s safety, the problem of childcare was not theirs but the temporeras’. By providing places where children could be looked after and fed, SERNAM alleviated the double shift for women so they could seek employment, albeit temporarily. However, the provision was linked to a particular type of seasonalemployment and therefore it did not remove the structural obstacle to women seeking any form of employment in equal conditions to men. By specifically focusing on female workers with children, the programme failed to present childcare as a joint responsibility for both male and female workers and employers in general. SERNAM recognised that the availability of low-cost childcare provision was one of the principal obstacles to women entering the labour force. However, SERNAM missedthe opportunity to incorporate childcare into sectoral policy at national level, thereby enabling women to compete with men in employment on a more level playing field. It evaded the central issue that childcare provision and women’s responsibility for the home are primarily gender issues,although they are affected by social class. Middle classwomen can pay to be substituted in the home and thereby alleviate the double shift, while working class women and single parents do not have the option of paying a substitute and therefore are forced to combine the home and paid employment. The classdimension appears to render the gender division of labour in the domestic sphere invisible and reduce it to an issueof purchasing power. Women enter and leave the labour force in a cyclical manner, depending on their life cycle and economic circumstances. Pregnancy and childbirth, caring for pre-school children and the availability of alternative childcare provision, the effects of economic crisis on the family income are all factors which influence when and how women participate in employment. These samefactors frequently trap women in informal, poorly paid and parttime employment. However, this is not necessarily the case for the temporeras. There is evidence that employers may even prefer workers with children since they can supplement the demand for labour at extremely short notice by taking their children to work also. Moreover, while female heads of household are often the most disadvantaged group in terms of employment opportunity, they do not appear to be discriminated against as temporary workers. Since they are the primary or sole source of income for the household, their need for stable earnings means they are less likely to leave mid-season to take up employment elsewhere.Female headsof households were more likely to be employed in the summer and sporadically throughout the winter, asthey supplemented this work with other activities such as domestic service (Rivera, 1993). Increased female participation in the rural labour force beyond the peak seasonalso suggeststhat a growing number of temporeras are becoming conscious of themselvesas a rural proletariat, rather than housewives who dipped in and out of agricultural employment to supplement the family income. Their primary motivation for entering employment is economic and is usually to supplement the family income, although personal
Gender and the state in rural Chile
103
development through work rather than childcare and domestic chores is also a significant reason given by temporeras (Medel et al., 1989). With time, the ‘feminisation’ of the modern agricultural sector may give SERNAM and the temporeras increased bargaining power to increase the employers’ contribution to the provision of childcare, particularly if women ceaseto be the rural reserve army of labour and become the principal source of workers. In common with other workers in the modern agricultural sector, the temporeras have low levels of organisation and unionisation, and SERNAM has made few inroads on this issue.Indeed, relations between SERNAM and the Women’s Secretariat in the CUT have been informal and no common programme was developed.’ The limitations of the SERNAM programme which, between 1991 and 1994, failed to extend beyond childcare provision, meant that the temporeras’ demands in such areas as health, employment or housing were not channelled. This situation is particularly worrying, becausetrades unions and social organisations are weak in rural areas and their ability to pressure employers or the state on behalf of their members is limited. However, despite the obvious disadvantage of such inadequate channels for representing the temporerus’ demands, the lack of unionisation and its conferred benefits has not rendered the temporeras entirely powerless. In 1995, the temporeras were offered the possibility of engaging in collective bargaining for a fixed wage at the beginning of the season. The proposal was presented to Parliament, but there were indications that it was likely to be rejected.’ Accepting collective bargaining for a fixed rate would have given the temporeras a considerable measure of security and the ability to budget more effectively. However, this meant the workers tying themselvesto a negotiated rate of pay at the point of maximum weakness, i.e. at the start of the season when they are trying to secure employment. This would deprive them of increasing pressure on the employers for progressively higher rates of pay as the season advanced and the demand for labour outstripped the supply. There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to institutionalising gender relations within the state. The work in the modern agricultural sector is seasonal and temporary; contractual relations are flexible to the point of non-existence. The working conditions of the fruit export sector make temporary female labour attractive to the employers, becausethey can have a relatively cheap, skilled, docile labour force. Yet, paradoxically the samefactors may also make the work attractive to the temporeras. The seasonality allows them to maintain both the traditional role of housewife and for part of the year enjoy the additional role of worker. The flexibility and payment by unit meansthat many women can accommodate the work around other responsibilities, or alternate in shifts with other family members. While the ‘double shift’ undoubtedly increases women’s workload and stresslevels within the household it has clear benefits. Employment increases the women’s self-esteem, their bargaining power within the household, and gains an additional income for many rural families (Bee and Vogel, 1996; Medel et al., 1989). CONCLUSIONS While SERNAM is undoubtedly in favour of extended childcare provision to enable women to enter the labour force, it has not converted this into a national policy. A possible explanation is that the state has accurately identified female labour as fundamental to the successof a sector which is central to Chile’s economy. The issueof childcare provision therefore has not been addressedin responsetowomen’s gender-specific need to be replaced
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Ann Matear
in their reproductive, nurturing role to enable them to enter the labour market. Instead, the initiative has a quite different slant - it is primarily to assist private enterprise to maximise profit. Employers do not need a permanent labour force, yet their demand for labour during four months of the year is so intense that demand outstrips supply. The fruit export sector is unique in that the state has stepped in with provision specifically for the children of women employed in the private enterprises. Moreover, the provision has not resulted from the temporeras successfully lobbying for childcare, and there is evidence that the majority of the centres run by SERNAM have been the initiative of the institution itself, rather than the beneficiaries (Herrera and Zufiiga, 1993). The Childcare Programme initially aimed to alleviate the double shift of productive and reproductive work, to facilitate women’s entry into the labour force and, importantly, to encourage their participation in the community. Childcare provision was perceived as one of the problems affecting the temporeras which could be resolved by negotiation and organisation, and the issue was presented as the collective responsibility of the temporerus, employers and the state. However, as the programme evolved, the social content of the original proposals were lost. The goals of participation, organisation and empowerment were dropped and, in their absence was the traditional paternalistic approach of the state to provide services for vulnerable groups, in this case women and children. There was no reference to the tripartite responsibility for childcare provision as a social responsibility for workers, employers and the state, but instead, the state appears to have assumed this responsibility. The later objective of only providing childcare was more practical and certainly more feasible given the limited scope of the programme. However, as the study by Herrera and Zufiiga showed, it significantly did not encourage empowerment or participation among the women and different groups within the community, such as unions and social organisations. NOTES 1. These elite groups were party activists, academics, professionals, women in non-governmental organisations. 2. For information on SERNAM and its programmes see Matear (1995, 1996). 3. These were published with funding from FAO as a 5-volume set entitled Mujer rural, in 1992. 4. Interview with Maria Luisa Rojas, Sectoral Coordinator, SERNAM. 5. This was based on information gained from studies conducted in three municipalities in Region V which revealed a four-fold increase in accidents among the children of temporeras in comparison to those of women who were not employed. Similarly they had very poor levels of nutrition. 6. The regions are III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and Metropolitan. 7. Interviews with leaders of the Secretaria Tecnica de la Mujer, CUT, Santiago, October 1992. 8. Private communication with Stephanie Barrientos.
REFERENCES Aranda, X. (1992) Mujer rural vol. I, diagndsticos Agricultura/FAO/SERNAM, Santiago. Bee and Vogel (1996) Temporeras and household sectoro. Bulletin of Latin American Research Herrera, S. and Zuiiiga, C. (1993) Informe final: centros
de atencidn
Santiago.
a hijos
de mujeres
para
orientar
politicas
en el agro. INDAP/Ministerio
de
relations: seasonal employment in Chile’s agro-export
16, 83-95. anrilisis, evaluacidn temporeras. Grupo de
y sistematizacidn
de programas
Investigaciones Agrarias/SERNAM,
de
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Matear, A. (1995) The Servicio National de la Mujer (SERNAM): women and the process of democratic transition in Chile, 199&93. In Neoliberalism with a Human Face? The Politics and Economics of the Chilean Model. ed. D. Hojman. Institute of Latin American Studies Monograph Series, no. 20, University of Liverpool, Liverpool. Matear, A. (1996) Desde la protesta a la propuesta: gender politics in transition in Chile. Democratization 3,3. Medel, J., Olivos, S. and Riquelme, V. (1989) Las temporeras y su vision de1 trabajo (condiciones de trabajo y participacidn social). Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, Santiago. Montecino, S. and Rossetti, J. (eds) (1990) Tramaspara un nuevo destino: propuestas de la Concertacion de Mujeres por la Democracia. Arancibia Hinnos, Santiago. Moser, C. (1994) Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. Routledge, London. Muribz, A. (1988) Fuerza de trabajo femenina: evolution y tendencias. In Mundo de mujer: continuidad y cambio. CEM, Santiago. Rivera, R. (1993) Informe de consultoria. Informefinal. Trabajadoras temporeras de la agricultura: analisis de su insercidn en el mercado laboral y fuentes de generacidn de ingresos. Grupo de Investigaciones Agrarias/SERNAM, Santiago. SERNAM (1993) Informe evaluativo programa centros de atencion a hijos de mujeres temporeras, 199293. Internal Document (unpublished). Valdes, T. and Weinstein, S. (1993) Mujeres que suerian: las organizaciones de pobladoras en Chile, 19731990. FLACSO, Santiago. Venegas, S. (1992) Mujer rural vol. II, campesinas y temporeras. INDAP/Ministerio de Agricultura/FAO/ SERNAM, Santiago. Young, K. (1989) Reflexiones sobre coma enfrentar las necesiadades de la mujeres. In Una nueva lectura: genero en el desarrollo, ed. V. Guzman and P. Portocarrero. Lima.
SO261-3050(96)00019-8
Gender and the State in Rural Chile ANN
MATEAR
School ?f Languages and Area Studies, University of Portsmouth, Wiltshire Building, Hampshire Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 2BU, UK Abstract ~ This paper focuses on SERNAM, the state institution responsible for the incorporation of gender into public policy in Chile, and the actions taken by the state to benefit women employed in the modern agricultural sector. It charts the emergence of the demands for such an institution by the women’s movement, and the creation of SERNAM as an integral part of the transition to democracy. In particular, the paper analyses the Programme for the Children of the Temporerus, which is a unique state-led initiative to provide childcare facilities to enable women to enter the seasonal labour market during the summer months. The paper explores the complex relations between gender, the state, capitalist agriculture and patriarchal structures, with the aim of highlighting the sometimes unexpected convergence of interests, and the points of conflict. Copyright 0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies Key words ~ Chile, state, gender, agriculture
INTRODUCTION Ironically, as the minimalist state rolls back on virtually all fronts, gender seemsto be an exception, In recent years, state institutions to plan and/or implement specific policies have been established in many Latin American countries. They are often the result of pressure from feminist groups within the women’s movement for the state to increasingly regulate gender relations and end discrimination in the public and private spheres. This paper focuses on Chile and analyses the complexities and paradoxes involved in integrating gender planning into state policies for implementation in the privately-owned modern agricultural sector. This particular combination of gender planning to benefit women and capitalist, export-oriented development open up complex debates on the role of the various state institutions involved in the process and the shifting relations between capitalist and patriarchal structures. The Chilean agricultural sector was transformed during the 1980sto produce a dynamic, modern sector oriented towards export markets rather than to domestic consumption. This resulted in intensive useof the land and changesin employment patterns. The demands for labour are increasingly dictated by the needs of capital and agro-industries. Many of the jobs which have been created are seasonal, temporary and unevenly distributed over the productive cycle. Seasonallabour has always been a feature of agricultural production in Chile, but the temporerasare the product of quite different, new labour relations. Informal employment enables employers to take advantage of non-unionised workers who, on temporary contracts, have fewer rights and benefits than permanent workers, thereby reducing the costs to the employer. It is no coincidence that the majority of these workers are women.
98 GENDER
Ann Matear RELATIONS
AND
THE CHILEAN
STATE
During the years of military rule, rural women entered the labour force in unprecedented numbers and, importantly, their social and political participation were also transformed. The mobilisation of women in opposition to the dictatorship occurred predominantly in urban areas, but women in rural areas also organised and linked their demands to the prodemocracy movement. In July 1986, at Punta de Tralca (Region V), the Departamento Femenino de la Comision National Campesina (CNS) elaborated the ‘Demanda de la Mujer Rural’ which called on rural women to organise and mobilise for democracy (Valdes and Weinstein, 1993). After the plebiscite in 1988, the restoration of formal politics eclipsed the direct actions of the social movements. Elites within the women’s movement emerged with considerable political bargaining power, and they formed the Women’s Alliance for Democracy (Concertacion de Mujeres por la Democracia).’ This parallelled the mainstream coalition of political parties which formed the democratic government after the 1989 elections (Matear, 1996). The Women’s Alliance proposed the creation of an institution to coordinate gender in social policy, which could take account of the diversity of women’s needs and demands. They demanded that women be incorporated into the process of political, economic and social participation, and produced a series of blueprints for sectoral policies to be implemented by the new democratic government (Montecino and Rossetti, 1990). The document also analysed the situation of rural women, and they formulated a political programme for women to be implemented by the future democratic government. The subcommission recognised the need for different policies for women in the rural and urban sectors and also acknowledged differences within the rural sector regarding peasants, wage earners, artisans and indigenous women, each of which require policies adapted to the regional and local reality. As a result of the pressure from the women’s movement, there are currently two state institutions which plan and implement policies affecting women living or working in rural areas. INDAP (Instituto National de Desarrollo Agropecuario), a division of the Ministry of Agriculture which is responsible for small-scale production, created the ‘Area Mujer’ in January 199 1, to specifically address the issues facing rural women which were not covered within INDAP’s mainstream programmes. Under the Aylwin government, INDAP focused on alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas and on meeting the demands for training and technical assistance which had been unmet during the dictatorship (Aranda, 1992). SERNAM (Servicio National de la Mujer), was created on 3rd January 1991 with the remit of incorporating a gender perspective into public po1icy.2 SERNAM aims to improve the condition of women in society by addressing immediate gender needs such as access to employment, housing, education or credit. A more long-term objective is to improve the position of women in society compared to men by addressing structural gender inequalities, which involves eliminating institutional forms of discrimination, alleviating women’s responsibility for the home and childcare, and ending the sexual division of labour. SERNAM was established with non-ministerial status, therefore it cannot implement its own policies or programmes, but instead has the remit of proposing measures to various ministries which may be incorporated into future policies. This has the advantage of allowing SERNAM to present the ‘big picture’ of the diverse structural factors which discriminate against women in an integrated, multisectoral manner - enabling it to attack
Gender and the state in rural Chile
99
simultaneously on all fronts. However, the recommendations may also be rejected or assigned low priority, either for financial or ideological reasons. SERNAM has only an administrative budget so any measures which it recommends must be financed by the ministries which implement them. This clearly reduces the ministries’ budgets for actions which they consider priorities. Gender inequalities stem from, and are reinforced by, women’s subordinate position in the domestic sphere, the social/economic sphere and the political sphere (Moser, 1994; Young, 1991). Influenced by the work of Caroline Moser, planners in SERNAM considered it inadequate to address gender discrimination from a purely sectoral perspective. To redress gender discrimination in the housing sector, or education, or employment in isolation might well improve the condition of women, but it would almost certainly do little to change their position in society vis-ri-vis men. Consequently, SERNAM attempted to address gender subordination from a multi-se&oral perspective, in the areas of employment, legislation, education. housing, health with the aim of promoting long-term social change in attitudes and behaviour. SERNAM’s operations were structured along three lines: (i)
the elimination of legal and sociocultural barriers which impede equal rights for women and their equal participation in society, (ii) the integration of women into the labour market and to contribute to improving the quality of life for them and their families, (iii) actions to support and strengthen the family unit. These lines of action involved both sectoral and intersectoral coordination and planning, combined with and supported by programmes to target actions at specific groups within the female population (Matear, 1995). SERNAM implemented several actions in the rural sector. In 1991, SERNAM and the Heritage Ministry (Ministerio de Bienes Nacionales) signed an agreement of interinstitutional cooperation and support for the Proyecto Masivo de Saneamiento de Titulos de Dominio Rurales a Nivel National, Gnanced by the World Bank. This programme aimed to strengthen women’s role in rural development by regulating the ownership of land and property, and SERNAM concentrated its efforts on those female heads of households who were eligible. This was important because women were frequently unable to demonstrate headship, and this was an essential criteria for gaining agricultural credit or participating in development programmes. SERNAM also contributed to the bill to reform the Labour Code which became law in September 1993. This bill contained specific provision for the seasonal workers in the fruit industry and required employers to provide hygienic facilities for food preparation, transport to the fields or packing plant, and sleeping accommodation for those workers who required it near the place of employment. SERNAM proposed a bill to introduce changes in the legal capacity of married women and redress the discriminatory situation which currently exists. Women could not gain access to credit without their husbands’ permission and they were unable to guarantee the loans since their goods legally belonged to their husbands. SERNAM collaborated with INDAP in a thorough investigation of government policies for agriculture at national and regional levels, and how these affected women in both modern and traditional agricultural production3 Furthermore, SERNAM has commissioned research into employment trends in the modern agricultural sector and has undertaken in-house research into programmes (including their own) which provide childcare. Collaboration
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between the two institutions varied greatly between one region and another, largely depending on the importance given to women within INDAP’s regional operations. The division of responsibilities and policy between SERNAM and INDAP assumed a clear distinction between campesinas and temporeras, and that the two categories did not overlap. The reality clearly does not support this assumption (Venegas, 1992) and, consequently, the assignation of tasks between the institutions was unsatisfactory for the following reasons. Firstly, SERNAM’s actions were biased towards urban women or women working in rural areas, through the Childcare Programme. As a result, the campesinas and non-urban temporeras were left on the margins of mainstream policies, such as employment training or microenterprise, which were channelled through SERNAM to the various ministries. Consequently their needs were not identified or represented. The temporeras were targeted in SERNAM’s proposals for the Labour Reforms and again benefited from the Childcare Programme. These women were wage workers in the modern agricultural sector, who mainly lived in rural shanty towns or travelled daily to the fields from the urban periphery. The Childcare Programme used municipal infrastructure in small and medium-sized towns, rather than install nurseries at the packing plants. In this way, urban dwellers benefited more than women living and working in rural areas. SERNAM’s actions to benefit peasant women were limited to the regulation of land rights which facilitated their access to credit and other benefits available to producers. The population of the traditional rural sector has long been marginalised from mainstream policies and the benefits associated with the modernisation process. SERNAM was established to incorporate women into the process of national development, yet this sector of the female population was inadequately included in its sphere of action. Conversely, INDAP’s remit is limited to the peasant population. This institutional limitation circumscribed INDAP’s ability to act in benefit of rural women temporarily employed in the fruit export sector. The temporeras fall outside INDAP’s remit since they are not smallscale producers but are a rural semi-proletariat. SERNAM developed a team of experts in the areas of housing, employment, justice, health and education to plan and coordinate policies with the respective ministries. However, it failed to establish formal mechanisms for sectoral work with INDAP until the appointment of a sectoral representative in 1994 - a full four years after it began operations. The lack of attention to the rural sector was, in part, due to SERNAM’s budget restrictions which meant that areas had to be prioritised, as the team of sectoral representatives was gradually pieced together.4 Within INDAP, the Area Mujer (Women’s Unit) was extremely well organised and staffed by women with a long history of participation in the women’s movement and in NGOs (often specialising in rural issues) during the dictatorship. Consequently, this was the one area which it was relatively uncomplicated for SERNAM to leave uncovered. The two institutions collaborated and cooperated well, albeit at a personal and informal level. However, the success or failure of policy initiatives affecting the rural female population cannot depend on personal ties which only exist as long as the personnel are in their respective positions. It would have been advantageous if SERNAM and INDAP had established institutional agreements which outlined respective responsibilities and areas of mutual collaboration on the issues facing rural women. Moreover, it is arguable that this process could have been facilitated by the common background of many of the women occupying high-level positions within both institutions at national and regional levels.
Gender and the state in rural Chile THE CHILDCARE
PROGRAMME
FOR THE CHILDREN
101 OF TEMPORERAS
I focus my analysis on the Childcare Programme for the Children of Temporeras. The programme was, in itself, a practical initiative which reached a relatively small number of the temporeras who required such a facility, and it involved relatively few resources. It undisputably provides a solution to the problem of inadequate or unaffordable childcare, a factor which more frequently than any other excludes women from the labour market. However, it raises issues which go far beyond the scope of the programme itself. These include structural obstacles to female participation in the labour force; the division of responsibilities and benefits between the state, the private sector and the workers themselves of women entering employment. The success of the women’s movement in pressuring for the creation of a state institution demonstrated that, if women’s gender-specific interests and demands can reflect and complement national interests, they are more likely to be incorporated into policy-making (Matear, 1996). However, I propose that, in this case, the way in which the childcare provision has been made serves the particular demands of capital and the export-oriented economic model for a temporary labour force, more than it meets women’s gender-specific needs to enter the labour force. Childcare provision for workers in the fruit export sector of the economy is a relatively recent phenomenon in Chile. As women entered the seasonal rural labour force in increasing numbers during the 1980s a significant gap grew between the demand for childcare provision and the facilities available (Herrera and Zuniga, 1993). In areas where there are few employment opportunities during the winter months, and where the wages earned in the peak season often have to keep the family for the rest of the year, economic necessity forces women to work shifts of up to 18 hours a day. The lack of childcare provision means, in effect, that children are often left alone, in the care of older siblings or neighbours, or taken to the fields and packing plants. These unsatisfactory solutions result in above-average incidences of injuries, malnutrition and juvenile crime (SERNAM, 1993).5 Because of limited resources in the public sector, it was necessary for SERNAM to make optimum and innovative use of existing facilities in the various state institutions which work with children, and municipal facilities which were empty during the school holidays. The programme was implemented in the fruit export regions which provided childcare for the temporeras during the peak season (December-March).6 In Chile, the law requires that all employers with more than 20 female employees have to provide childcare facilities for under-twos. In reality, this law is often flouted or a maximum of 19 women are employed. Affordable childcare is available (though limited) through state-run nurseries and after-school clubs, but places are not allocated on the basis of whether the parent is employed, or in which area of the economy they work. Women workers are also concentrated in the textile industry or in the service sector yet these have not been singled out for specific provision. In part, the special provision for the fruit export sector could be explained by lower coverage of nursery places in rural areas. However, many temporeras are not of rural origin but travel to the packing plants from urban areas on a daily basis. Moreover, the programme uses municipal schools, and therefore the centres are located in small and medium-sized towns rather than rural areas. It may be because the peak period of employment for the temporeras coincides with the summer school vacation. Yet, other sectors of the economy continue to employ women during that period without making any special provision. Clearly, these explanations alone are
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insufticient to account for the state’s provision of childcare to support women entering paid employment in privately-owned enterprises. The programme was intended to be a tripartite arrangement with the involvement of state institutions, the municipalities and the private sector. However, employers demonstrated little formal commitment to the programme, and they did not perceive that their responsibility for and contribution to the provision of childcare facilities should be commensurate with the benefit they received from this. The bottom line on the employers’ contribution was that they knew the programme would go ahead with or without their contribution and, while they benefited from increased productivity when the workers were relaxed about their children’s safety, the problem of childcare was not theirs but the temporeras’. By providing places where children could be looked after and fed, SERNAM alleviated the double shift for women so they could seek employment, albeit temporarily. However, the provision was linked to a particular type of seasonalemployment and therefore it did not remove the structural obstacle to women seeking any form of employment in equal conditions to men. By specifically focusing on female workers with children, the programme failed to present childcare as a joint responsibility for both male and female workers and employers in general. SERNAM recognised that the availability of low-cost childcare provision was one of the principal obstacles to women entering the labour force. However, SERNAM missedthe opportunity to incorporate childcare into sectoral policy at national level, thereby enabling women to compete with men in employment on a more level playing field. It evaded the central issue that childcare provision and women’s responsibility for the home are primarily gender issues,although they are affected by social class. Middle classwomen can pay to be substituted in the home and thereby alleviate the double shift, while working class women and single parents do not have the option of paying a substitute and therefore are forced to combine the home and paid employment. The classdimension appears to render the gender division of labour in the domestic sphere invisible and reduce it to an issueof purchasing power. Women enter and leave the labour force in a cyclical manner, depending on their life cycle and economic circumstances. Pregnancy and childbirth, caring for pre-school children and the availability of alternative childcare provision, the effects of economic crisis on the family income are all factors which influence when and how women participate in employment. These samefactors frequently trap women in informal, poorly paid and parttime employment. However, this is not necessarily the case for the temporeras. There is evidence that employers may even prefer workers with children since they can supplement the demand for labour at extremely short notice by taking their children to work also. Moreover, while female heads of household are often the most disadvantaged group in terms of employment opportunity, they do not appear to be discriminated against as temporary workers. Since they are the primary or sole source of income for the household, their need for stable earnings means they are less likely to leave mid-season to take up employment elsewhere.Female headsof households were more likely to be employed in the summer and sporadically throughout the winter, asthey supplemented this work with other activities such as domestic service (Rivera, 1993). Increased female participation in the rural labour force beyond the peak seasonalso suggeststhat a growing number of temporeras are becoming conscious of themselvesas a rural proletariat, rather than housewives who dipped in and out of agricultural employment to supplement the family income. Their primary motivation for entering employment is economic and is usually to supplement the family income, although personal
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development through work rather than childcare and domestic chores is also a significant reason given by temporeras (Medel et al., 1989). With time, the ‘feminisation’ of the modern agricultural sector may give SERNAM and the temporeras increased bargaining power to increase the employers’ contribution to the provision of childcare, particularly if women ceaseto be the rural reserve army of labour and become the principal source of workers. In common with other workers in the modern agricultural sector, the temporeras have low levels of organisation and unionisation, and SERNAM has made few inroads on this issue.Indeed, relations between SERNAM and the Women’s Secretariat in the CUT have been informal and no common programme was developed.’ The limitations of the SERNAM programme which, between 1991 and 1994, failed to extend beyond childcare provision, meant that the temporeras’ demands in such areas as health, employment or housing were not channelled. This situation is particularly worrying, becausetrades unions and social organisations are weak in rural areas and their ability to pressure employers or the state on behalf of their members is limited. However, despite the obvious disadvantage of such inadequate channels for representing the temporerus’ demands, the lack of unionisation and its conferred benefits has not rendered the temporeras entirely powerless. In 1995, the temporeras were offered the possibility of engaging in collective bargaining for a fixed wage at the beginning of the season. The proposal was presented to Parliament, but there were indications that it was likely to be rejected.’ Accepting collective bargaining for a fixed rate would have given the temporeras a considerable measure of security and the ability to budget more effectively. However, this meant the workers tying themselvesto a negotiated rate of pay at the point of maximum weakness, i.e. at the start of the season when they are trying to secure employment. This would deprive them of increasing pressure on the employers for progressively higher rates of pay as the season advanced and the demand for labour outstripped the supply. There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to institutionalising gender relations within the state. The work in the modern agricultural sector is seasonal and temporary; contractual relations are flexible to the point of non-existence. The working conditions of the fruit export sector make temporary female labour attractive to the employers, becausethey can have a relatively cheap, skilled, docile labour force. Yet, paradoxically the samefactors may also make the work attractive to the temporeras. The seasonality allows them to maintain both the traditional role of housewife and for part of the year enjoy the additional role of worker. The flexibility and payment by unit meansthat many women can accommodate the work around other responsibilities, or alternate in shifts with other family members. While the ‘double shift’ undoubtedly increases women’s workload and stresslevels within the household it has clear benefits. Employment increases the women’s self-esteem, their bargaining power within the household, and gains an additional income for many rural families (Bee and Vogel, 1996; Medel et al., 1989). CONCLUSIONS While SERNAM is undoubtedly in favour of extended childcare provision to enable women to enter the labour force, it has not converted this into a national policy. A possible explanation is that the state has accurately identified female labour as fundamental to the successof a sector which is central to Chile’s economy. The issueof childcare provision therefore has not been addressedin responsetowomen’s gender-specific need to be replaced
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in their reproductive, nurturing role to enable them to enter the labour market. Instead, the initiative has a quite different slant - it is primarily to assist private enterprise to maximise profit. Employers do not need a permanent labour force, yet their demand for labour during four months of the year is so intense that demand outstrips supply. The fruit export sector is unique in that the state has stepped in with provision specifically for the children of women employed in the private enterprises. Moreover, the provision has not resulted from the temporeras successfully lobbying for childcare, and there is evidence that the majority of the centres run by SERNAM have been the initiative of the institution itself, rather than the beneficiaries (Herrera and Zufiiga, 1993). The Childcare Programme initially aimed to alleviate the double shift of productive and reproductive work, to facilitate women’s entry into the labour force and, importantly, to encourage their participation in the community. Childcare provision was perceived as one of the problems affecting the temporeras which could be resolved by negotiation and organisation, and the issue was presented as the collective responsibility of the temporerus, employers and the state. However, as the programme evolved, the social content of the original proposals were lost. The goals of participation, organisation and empowerment were dropped and, in their absence was the traditional paternalistic approach of the state to provide services for vulnerable groups, in this case women and children. There was no reference to the tripartite responsibility for childcare provision as a social responsibility for workers, employers and the state, but instead, the state appears to have assumed this responsibility. The later objective of only providing childcare was more practical and certainly more feasible given the limited scope of the programme. However, as the study by Herrera and Zufiiga showed, it significantly did not encourage empowerment or participation among the women and different groups within the community, such as unions and social organisations. NOTES 1. These elite groups were party activists, academics, professionals, women in non-governmental organisations. 2. For information on SERNAM and its programmes see Matear (1995, 1996). 3. These were published with funding from FAO as a 5-volume set entitled Mujer rural, in 1992. 4. Interview with Maria Luisa Rojas, Sectoral Coordinator, SERNAM. 5. This was based on information gained from studies conducted in three municipalities in Region V which revealed a four-fold increase in accidents among the children of temporeras in comparison to those of women who were not employed. Similarly they had very poor levels of nutrition. 6. The regions are III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and Metropolitan. 7. Interviews with leaders of the Secretaria Tecnica de la Mujer, CUT, Santiago, October 1992. 8. Private communication with Stephanie Barrientos.
REFERENCES Aranda, X. (1992) Mujer rural vol. I, diagndsticos Agricultura/FAO/SERNAM, Santiago. Bee and Vogel (1996) Temporeras and household sectoro. Bulletin of Latin American Research Herrera, S. and Zuiiiga, C. (1993) Informe final: centros
de atencidn
Santiago.
a hijos
de mujeres
para
orientar
politicas
en el agro. INDAP/Ministerio
de
relations: seasonal employment in Chile’s agro-export
16, 83-95. anrilisis, evaluacidn temporeras. Grupo de
y sistematizacidn
de programas
Investigaciones Agrarias/SERNAM,
de
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Matear, A. (1995) The Servicio National de la Mujer (SERNAM): women and the process of democratic transition in Chile, 199&93. In Neoliberalism with a Human Face? The Politics and Economics of the Chilean Model. ed. D. Hojman. Institute of Latin American Studies Monograph Series, no. 20, University of Liverpool, Liverpool. Matear, A. (1996) Desde la protesta a la propuesta: gender politics in transition in Chile. Democratization 3,3. Medel, J., Olivos, S. and Riquelme, V. (1989) Las temporeras y su vision de1 trabajo (condiciones de trabajo y participacidn social). Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, Santiago. Montecino, S. and Rossetti, J. (eds) (1990) Tramaspara un nuevo destino: propuestas de la Concertacion de Mujeres por la Democracia. Arancibia Hinnos, Santiago. Moser, C. (1994) Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. Routledge, London. Muribz, A. (1988) Fuerza de trabajo femenina: evolution y tendencias. In Mundo de mujer: continuidad y cambio. CEM, Santiago. Rivera, R. (1993) Informe de consultoria. Informefinal. Trabajadoras temporeras de la agricultura: analisis de su insercidn en el mercado laboral y fuentes de generacidn de ingresos. Grupo de Investigaciones Agrarias/SERNAM, Santiago. SERNAM (1993) Informe evaluativo programa centros de atencion a hijos de mujeres temporeras, 199293. Internal Document (unpublished). Valdes, T. and Weinstein, S. (1993) Mujeres que suerian: las organizaciones de pobladoras en Chile, 19731990. FLACSO, Santiago. Venegas, S. (1992) Mujer rural vol. II, campesinas y temporeras. INDAP/Ministerio de Agricultura/FAO/ SERNAM, Santiago. Young, K. (1989) Reflexiones sobre coma enfrentar las necesiadades de la mujeres. In Una nueva lectura: genero en el desarrollo, ed. V. Guzman and P. Portocarrero. Lima.