Chile

A

Principal Cities

Santiago, the capital and largest city of Chile, has a population of 5,477,804 (2003 estimate) for its urban agglomeration. The country’s other major cities are Puente Alto, an industrial center that was formerly a suburb of Santiago (population, 2006 estimate, 627,263); Viña del Mar, a popular resort (292,203); Antofagasta, a mining center and harbor (341,942); Valparaíso, a principal seaport (276,474); and Concepción, an agricultural and industrial center (225,158). The main cities of the north are the ports of Antofagasta, Arica, and Iquique. The main cities of the south are Temuco, the gateway to Chile’s Lake District; Osorno, a commercial and industrial center in the heart of the Lake District; and the seaport of Puerto Montt.

B

Social Structure

During colonial days and for a long time after independence, Chile had a rigid society consisting of a privileged landowning aristocracy, descended from the original Spanish settlers, and a lower class of peasants and domestic servants. The Indians lived as a nation apart. The aristocrats, bound together in the National Agricultural Society, dominated the government and led comfortable and cultured lives. They escaped heavy taxation because of the high revenues the government obtained from the export duty on nitrate (Saltpeter). Most Chileans, denied the vote by property and literacy qualifications, were poorly housed and fed, and illiterate.

In the latter part of the 19th century the middle class began to increase in size; it consisted mainly of mestizos who were able to acquire some education. Eventually, as trade and industry grew, and especially after the nitrate market collapsed following World War I (1914-1918), the tight control of the landowning aristocracy was loosened. New groups, among them traders, manufacturers, professional people, and intellectuals, began to swell the ranks of the middle class and to press for social reforms. In addition, by 1920 there was an organized and impatient working class that lacked the ingrained loyalty to the landlords that had developed in the tenant farmer class. All these groups demanded the attention of the government and began to promote economic and social change.

Today Chile’s social structure can be roughly divided into three classes. In the upper class are members of the old landed aristocracy as well as a more recently wealthy group of industrialists, merchants, politicians, and military men. Although these two segments of the upper class have power and prestige in common, they are often at odds politically and economically. Both groups supported the imposition of military rule, but by the end of the 1980s many backed the restoration of democratic politics.

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Chile’s lower class consists of farm laborers, crafts workers, factory workers, and miners. This is the class that backed Salvador Allende’s coalition before 1973, that suffered the most from the policies of the military regime, and that again turned to left-wing parties after the end of military rule in 1990. Sharply falling real wages—wages calculated in terms of buying power—from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s increased the size of this group. Government policy in the 1990s and early 2000s endeavored to improve the health and education of this neglected part of the population.

The middle class, largely urban, is extremely varied in incomes, occupations, and interests. It is composed of professionals, teachers and university professors, civil servants, many private employers, and some small merchants, industrialists, and investors. Many members of the middle class benefited from Chile’s rapid economic growth in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Politically, members of the middle class participate in all parties.

Social mobility has been high in Chile, and upward social movement has been common. The period of military rule in the late 1900s at first appeared to be simply reactionary and traditionalist. But the free-market economic policies that it adopted ultimately led to increased social mobility.

Women have always had a higher degree of independence in Chile than in any other Latin American country. They participate in public life and are numerous in the trades and in professions. Many women from the middle and upper classes attain higher education and pursue teaching and other professional careers. After women received the vote in 1949 they came to play a decisive role in Chilean elections. The rise of the Christian Democratic Party to power was due partly to its appeal to women.

Women assumed very important roles in the defense of their families against the repression and the economic privations of the Pinochet dictatorship. They emerged as leaders of human rights movements and of so-called popular economic organizations—collective gardens, communal kitchens, and other survival strategies in the poorest neighborhoods. They also played an important role in the redemocratization movement that finally brought a return to civilian rule in 1990.

Many such organizations remained active and new ones emerged in the 1990s to enable women to play an important role in the reconstruction of social service programs. Women also organized to promote change of discriminatory social legislation, including the prohibition of divorce. In 2004 Chile finally legalized divorce, and in 2006 Chileans elected their first female president.

C

Language

Spanish is the official language of Chile and is spoken by virtually the entire population. Although some inhabitants continue to speak Mapuche, an Araucanian language, or German, nearly all of them are also fluent speakers of Spanish. Many Chileans also speak English and other languages of international commerce.

D

Religion

Roman Catholics constitute 78 percent of the population of Chile. The Roman Catholic Church has been a major force in Chilean society, although church and state were officially separated in 1925. Protestants make up about 3 percent of the population. The remainder are primarily people who profess no religion. Native Americans practicing traditional religions constitute a very small minority.

In the late 1960s, influenced by papal social encyclicals and by European Catholic social thought, the church played a prominent role in the introduction of social reforms in Chile, and the number of socially concerned priests increased. These representatives of the church took progressive positions, even on delicate issues such as birth control, as part of their efforts to remedy pressing social problems. A sector of the Catholic hierarchy was also influential in the rise of the Christian Democratic Party.

After 1973 the church initially backed the overthrow of the leftist government but subsequently strongly condemned the abduction, torture, and murder practiced by the military dictatorship. The Vicariate of Solidarity founded by the archdiocese of Santiago called for a return to full democracy and became a key provider of legal defense for political prisoners. In the 1990s the church abstained from direct involvement in politics even while it strived to promote its conservative social positions. Divorce was prohibited in Chile until 2004, and abortion remains illegal.

The Protestant churches initially came to Chile because of a British presence in the country and as a result of several educational and social institutions established in Chile by North American churches. German immigrants founded Lutheran denominations in their areas of settlement south of the Biobío River. Starting in the 1970s evangelical congregations began to convert many nominal Catholics among the urban and rural poor.

E

Education and Cultural Activity

A distinctive cultural tradition has evolved in Chile that combines elements of the various ethnic groups. To a large extent, the arts and the educational system of Chile are based on European models.

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