Catalina Siles, adviser to the Minister of Social Development, María Jesús Wulf, said cultural change weighs as heavily as economic constraints in Chile's falling birth rate, according to La Tercera. The historian leads the Chile Renace commission as its executive secretary. "Having more children is a social good that transcends value-based positions", she said in an interview with that newspaper.
The figures explain the urgency. Chile records 0.99 children per woman, one of the lowest rates in the world. The Chile Renace plan seeks to design public policies that halt that decline and bring the figure closer to the replacement rate, the level that keeps a population stable.
Siles holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in History, as well as a doctorate in Sociology from the Universidad Católica. She joined Wulf's team in March of this year with a single mandate: to work on that plan. In December she will publish the book "Donde nace el mundo. Familia y natalidad en tiempos de desarraigo" (Where the world is born: Family and birth rate in times of uprootedness).
Among the material causes, the adviser listed economic constraints, increasingly difficult access to housing and the challenges of balancing family and work. She also mentioned the lack of support networks for care and the postponement of family decisions, from forming a couple to having a first child.
According to Siles, the extended family, historically a mainstay in Chile, is increasingly diminished. "That means child-rearing is experienced with more and more loneliness", she said.
However, the adviser placed the emphasis on culture. She argued that having children was until recently an unavoidable chapter of adult life and that today it competes with other life projects, especially for women. When asked for proportions, she estimated 50-50, with variations by territory and social group.
Her argument draws on countries with robust social security, care and education systems that nonetheless show a persistent decline. For Siles, this indicates that cultural changes carry more weight than is commonly thought. Among them she cited secularization, individualism and the loss of a sense of transcendence.
Asked about feminism, she described a complex relationship with motherhood, especially since the second wave and the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. She acknowledged that associating motherhood with domestic confinement has some basis and that this critique influenced cultural change.
She also highlighted what the British writer Mary Harrington calls care feminism. That current proposes revaluing motherhood and showing that it is compatible with work and public life. According to Siles, well-supported motherhood can be a space for fulfillment.
The available text of the interview cuts off as Siles begins to answer what the State can do about the problem. For that reason, this article does not include specific Chile Renace measures. According to La Tercera, Siles maintains that the crisis involves all actors in society, not only the government.
