ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of Chile’s welfare system with an emphasis on the characteristics and impact of the health care and the fully funded defined contribution (DC) pension systems.
Chile’s welfare system began to develop in a piecemeal fashion in the 1920s and expanded both in terms of programs and coverage between the 1920s and the early 1970s. The two main pillars of Chile’s social welfare policies were multiple social security programs and the provision of health care. Neither unemployment insurance nor social assistance programs have played a large role in the history and evolution of welfare programs in Chile. Consequently, this chapter will concentrate on the evolution and nature of social security and pension programs and the health care system emphasizing the role that the state and the market have played in the process. A more recent unemployment insurance program will be briefly analyzed.
