Affirmative Action à la Bachelet

Dangers of Direct & Reverse Discrimination


II y a un consensus sur l’implémentation de politiques publiques générales diriges à soutenir les femmes pour joindre le marche de travaille et pour encourager la utilisation de ses qualifications et capacités productives, sans préjudice de leur rôle primordial dans la création et soutien de la vie de famille. Au contraire, les actions spécifiques e la mis en marche de mesures de caractère ponctuelles prises par le nouveau gouvernement dovraient être appliquées avec un principe de précaution, puisqu´elles peuvent être source de discrimination envers et provoquer ainsi plus de conflits entre genres, au lieu d´ encourager la neutralité et égalité des genres dans la nation.

As seen from outside the country, after the assumption of Ms. President Bachelet, a new serious impulse to the public policy discussion on social welfare and equity is starting to take place in Chile. At the beginning, a number of governmental policies contained in the Presidential Program, directed to correct social injustices against demographic groups, subjected to economic deprivation and social discrimination, have been put into practice. Despite the bonanza of Chilean private businesses and the overwhelming surplus in public finances (supported by high prices of copper, returns from divers exportations and a relative high VAT and Excise tax yield), the country accounts one of the most regressive distributions of income in the world. Hence, the introduction by the new government of a positive action program is directed to increase the opportunities and fade inequities suffered by distinct demographic groups in fields of education, basic health, pensions and workforce opportunities.

In the last 30 years, the tendency of Chilean social behavior has been impregnated in many areas by an extreme neoliberal approach, which has encouraged the pressure at all social levels to maintain or increase the consuming capacity of individuals. There have been many attempts by the coalition, who brought back Chile to a solid democratic base, to moderate the acute imbalances of the neoliberal economy, introducing the concepts of economic development and social equity. Nonetheless, it is noticeable that the basis of equality and welfare have been structurally eroded, by the fact that, only the ones who have the ability to pay can follow the dictatorship imposed to the Chilean household by the marketing rule of periodical acquisition and disposal of new goods and services. In practice, only the households that can finance the best nutrition, the best education, the best health system and the best private pensions can aspire to have success in giving their new generations opportunities to compete for a good remunerated job in the booming and competitive economic environment. Moreover, the latter competition is not only fought in the field of a good educational background, since the country´s social structure is well known for its positive discriminations by social class, gender, race, age and ethnicity. Thus, the affirmative action of the President introduces a new dimension in order to favor people considered to have been disadvantaged by economic and historical prejudices. This approach has been specifically encouraged in order to erase positive discriminations and establish a new public benchmark, particularly in the area of gender workforce, where the presidential cabinet has been installed with a quota of 50% representation for women and men.

On the outset, the adoption of this rule is an advancement in the equalitarian treatment for women in the Chilean workforce. But it may also be open to criticism, since it is likely to produce situations of reverse discrimination in areas where highly qualified workforce is needed, which should be selected in consideration to educational credentials, technical experience and professional background, which in a developing country like Chile are scarce. Thus, by adopting a positive rule in order to erase overt discrimination against women, in the field of public administration, the new government has given grounds to create covert discriminations, where persons have been appointed without regard to their capacities, specially in some sensible areas. Besides, if the eventual purpose of the measure was to erase positive gender discriminations, then the logical solution would have been the adoption of a transgender rule, allowing the participation of the so called third sex. This is, individuals whose gender role does not fit within a binary scheme of (heterosexual) male and female. Furthermore, it is important to recall that in other jurisdictions the use gender quotas in positive action are considered illegal, except when supported by a judicial order for a specific institution in order to revert extreme past discrimination. Consequently, the most sound approach would have been to adopt a public policy of equal opportunities based on meritocratic principles. This entails a system where the ability, merit and talent, rather than sex, class, race, ethnicity or political color qualify as determinant for work in civil service or public administration.

Overall, the problem of gender discrimination today in most developing countries like Chile is the noticeable trend of more women getting university degrees than men and more females filling new jobs. The increase in female employment is explained by a shift in the type of manufacture industrial workforce to a technological and services skilled workforce, which has put the sexes in equal standing. Also, there has been strong evidence showing that in the last 2 generations women get better school and university qualifications, more degrees are awarded to girls and at the interior of companies they have often better skills at building teams and communicating. Hence, human resources policies in developing countries should be focused in educating more women, who seem to be not only more productive, but it assures the raise of healthier and better educated children.

Notwithstanding this feminization of the workplace, for most women there are still many barriers that limit their chances. Therefore, it seems that governmental accent must be to support the actual higher female labour participation with the right social policies. Consequently, a global approach could comprehend the removal of obstacles for women to combine work with family life, to ameliorate parental leave, to establish better conditions for child care, to enable flexible working hours, to reform the tax system in order to incorporate incentives for women to work, to reform the health and protection system for women, to reform the pension system and the like comprehensive measures.

There is consent that comprehensive public policies should be aimed at supporting women for them to join the labour market and make use of their skills and qualifications without disregarding the role of women as a fundamental pillar in creating and sustaining family life. Conversely specific actions of the new government in order to fight gender discrimination, imposing punctual measures, should be followed cautiously, since they can be a source of reverse discrimination, which may at the end originate more gender disputes, instead of encouraging gender neutrality and gender equality in the country.