Abstract

Answering the question of who are the poor, this paper presents, in the first place, several points of view known in Chile about poverty through time. Then, based on the data from the CASEN survey for the period 1987-2003 and using econometric techniques, this papers analyses the relationship between personal charateristics and the probability of being poor, the probability of people from different socio-economic strata of achieving certain levels of education, being healthy, having access to health care, being free-lance or having a low qualification, as well as if these probabilities differ according to age, civil status and urban or rural residence. Equally, the analysis of social programs is focused on the probability the poor and almost-poor have of being covered by the pension system and health programs whether public of private. The work concludes that, in spite of the great advances in Chile in terms of coverage of health services and social prevision, the poor rarely have access to health care when needed and to the coverage of the pension system. Policy implications identified in this paper - where it is observed and realizations - establishes the need of reinforcing Chilean mechanism of social protection for the poorest.