Moving away from familism by default? The trends of family policies in Latin America

Within the care regime literature, Latin American countries have often been classified as familist or familist by default, characterised by the absence of policies to support families in the function of caring for their dependents. Drawing on novel data, this paper investigates the development of policies to support family care responsibilities for children, in Latin America, during the 2010s. Using a descriptive comparative method, it identifies an increase in the family policy effort across the region, despite favouring targeted programmes for the poor, with an emphasis in some cases on the service provisions (Chile, Colombia, and Peru) and in others on cash benefits (Argentina and Brazil). However, these efforts have been insufficient, particularly when compared to the average level of provision among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) countries. We argue that only Uruguay has actually moved away from the pattern of familism by default, promoting an extensive state co-responsibility for the caring function.