Francisca Jünemann, fighter for labor equality in Chile: ‘The best investment a country can make is to pass a strong childcare law’

Lawyer Francisca Jünemann, 50, has dedicated her entire professional life to women’s rights. The second of four sisters, she grew up in a home free of discrimination, with the necessary care and an equal level of demand for all. When she started law school and became familiar with the rules of Chile’s Civil and Labor Code, her view of her surroundings changed: “I realized that I was living in a country without equality before the law for women. And that continues to this day.” She cites as an example the law that establishes that the husband is the “head” of the conjugal partnership and, as such, “administers the social goods and those of his wife.” Some 65% of married couples live under this regime, which is the default one, and 33% opt for total separation of property. On the other hand, she warns of the enormous gap that exists in the rights between fathers and mothers in at the workplace.

Jünemann began working in family law, where she saw the most legal gaps, but then moved on to labor rights. “In the end, economic autonomy and equality of opportunity and labor rights is what opens the door to women’s full freedom and dignity,” she says. The most emblematic case of the problem that exists in the Labor Code is the article referring to the right to childcare (sala cuna) at the work place. In Chile, a company must provide this benefit as long as it has at least 20 women employees, which in practice discourages the hiring of women. “The costs associated with hiring women have to do with the fact that the role of caregiver is legally entrenched in women, not only culturally. On top of that, it excludes co-responsibility,” she adds.

For the past 10 years, Jünemann has been president of the foundation ChileMujeres, which works for equal rights and opportunities for women in the workplace. For example, if they address violence, they focus on workplace harassment, sexual harassment and violence in the office. The two pillars on which the foundation is built are laws and statistical evidence. “Not only do you have to measure the gap by gender, but among women themselves. Women with higher incomes in our country are similar to women in developed countries. And those with lower incomes barely have formal job opportunities, precisely because there is still not a good system of support and care,” says the lawyer, who warns that today only 15% of women in Chile have this right. The rest do not work in companies with more than 20 women employed.

Regarding the country’s Universal Childcare bill, Jünemann assures that it has positive aspects, such as granting the right to mothers and fathers and decoupling the cost of hiring women because it is financed through an additional contribution for all the people that the company has hired. The problem is that the amount established by the regulation is very low, 0.2% of the salary, with a maximum taxable amount. “On average, women earn 700,000 Chilean pesos (about $750) and men earn 900,000 pesos (about $970) in formal jobs. The proceeds go to a fund to pay for childcare, which is about 270,000 pesos. In Chile, there are no nurseries that cost that amount,” she points out. For this reason, her foundation has insistently defended that the amount that is set will be decisive for this right to be exercised in practice.

Since the figures do not add up, the lawyer sees it as evident that the government must offer some financial support through general taxes because “the fact that you support maternity and paternity is a matter of the country’s sustainability and with a law such as this one, which supports labor formality and hiring, you make the country grow.” “So this pays for itself. The best investment you can make as a country is to pass a strong childcare law,” Jünemann says. She adds that this law is necessary to promote the formal employment of women, but also to support the birth rate, which in Chile is at the bottom of Latin America, with 135,339 births in 2024. The lawyer affirms that 20% of women decide not to have children because they see motherhood as incompatible with professional development. Therefore, she stresses, there is a responsibility in public policies to stop the decline, but also in business, due to the poor working conditions they generate.