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Retructuring and the new working classes in chile
Diaz, Alvaro
Diaz, Alvaro
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DP47.pdf
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Abstract
"During the decade 1982-1992, the social structure of Chile was fundamentally transformed, particularly in relation to the condition of workers and the nature of poverty. The central thesis of this study is that the breakup of the old social structure, which was the most important feature of the period 1973-1982, has been completed. This was a period characterized by rising unemployment, a fall in waged work, a growth in urban informal employment and an increase in marginality. By contrast, the period 1982-1992 saw a period of social restructuring which speeded up after 1986 and which was marked by a fall in the rate of unemployment, a reduction in informality and tertiary employment, and an increase in waged work among the labour force. Examination of what took place between 1973 and 1992 leads to the conclusion that a real historical cycle of destructuring and restructuring has taken place. This is similar to what took place in Chile between 1920 and 1940 - a period which encompassed the nitrate crisis and the Ibañez del Campo dictatorship, lasting until the Popular Front and the beginnings of import-substituting industrialization. Nevertheless, the cycle which would seem to have just ended has had a wider spatial impact, a different structural direction and a greater susceptibility to future changes and fluctuations. This is because the Chilean economy is more open, and hence sectors and regions are susceptible to more rapid and intense situations of expansion or decline than was the case at the middle of the century. Looking at what has taken place, the direction and magnitude of change cannot fail to impress the observer. In the last three-monthly period of 1982, there were more than 1.2 million people unemployed or participating in emergency work programmes. Ten years later, the number of unemployed had been reduced to less than 250,000, within the context of the disappearance of emergency work programmes and a relative fall in informal urban employment. This means that, between 1982 and 1992, more than a million Chileans left the ranks of the unemployed, at the same time that underemployment was falling. Of course, the official statistics are generous in their understanding of what constitutes an “employed person”.1 It is nevertheless undeniable that the rate of unemployment has been substantially reduced - from 27 per cent in 1982 to 4.5 per cent in 1992."(pg 1)
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1993-10
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