Maternity and Public Policies in Chilein the Covid-19 Context

Abstract

Taking the case of Chile as case study, this article contributes to the growing discussion on social policies and motherhood in Latin America and the impact of the recent COVID-19 crisis. We focus on the Chilean case reflecting on the idea of women as mothers and caregivers in public policy, and in the lived experiences of Chileans. We also introduce a reflection on the gendered implications of the crisis generated by COVID-19. We then analyse some relevant public policies on health, housing and labour programs to demonstrate how the focus of women as mothers in Chilean social policies is not uniform, each public policy has an attitude towards motherhood, yet they all reproduce the idea of women as mothers in charge of unpaid care work. We therefore argue that women’s access to social policy is still highly contingent upon this vision of women as mothers and caregivers.