The following is a translation of preliminary results from
research conducted by José Ossandón, with the support of Tomás Ariztía, Macarena Barros, and Camila
Peralta, and funded by IMTFI.
Luisa is a 54-year-old housewife who
lives in the municipality of La Pintana, south of Santiago. Seven others live in her household: her husband Patrick, her children Nacho, Paty, and Andrea, her
son-in-law Rafael, and her grandchildren Camila and Cristian. Luisa also has a
fourth daughter Katia, who lives with her husband Rodrigo in the same
neighborhood. Luisa’s husband Patrick works as a freelance painter sporadically,
and he earns on average 150,000 pesos (US$312) a month. In addition to
housework, Luisa manages a kiosco or small shop in her home, which earns her between
20-30,000 pesos a month. Andrea and her husband work and take care of their own
expenses. Paty, in turn, is unemployed and so receives help from her parents to
cover her expenses and those of her daughter. Nacho is studying nursing with
the support of a loan (called a Crédito Aval del Estado, or State-Guaranteed
Credit) and recently has begun to receive his first income as an occasional
worker in construction. Luisa and her family maintain their home with the money
that Luisa and her husband earn and with the financial support they receive
from their children.
With regards to her financial life, Luisa
has a savings account, an emergency fund of 40,000 pesos cobbled together with
money from the kiosk in the BancoEstado, a state-owned financial institution.
Since Luisa and her husband have informal jobs, neither has access to checking
accounts or bank loans. Luisa is, however, an active participant in three
informal financial institutions, two pollas (rotating savings organizations)
and a caja común (“common fund”) that functions as a Christmas savings club.
The caja can also be used as a source of credit, but under certain restrictions. Loans
must be repaid with interest, there are fines for late payments, and if a
member misses her quota for three consecutive dates, she is removed from the group
and the money she has contributed up to that point is not returned to her.
