Departamento de Economía - Ciclo de Seminarios Permanentes

Chile's Missing Students: Dictatorship, Higher Education and Social Mobility

Presentador: Mounu Prem (Universidad del Rosario)

Fecha y hora: Martes 12 de mayo de 11:45 a 13:00 hs

Pedimos por favor que ingresen con sus micrófonos y cámaras apagadas.

Abstract:

Hostile policies towards higher education are a prominent feature of authoritarian regimes. We study the capture of higher education by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile following the 1973 coup. We find three main results: (i) Cohorts that reached college age shortly after the coup experienced a large drop in college enrolment, mostly as a result of the persistent reduction in the number of openings for incoming students decreed by the regime; (ii) these cohorts had worse economic outcomes throughout the life cycle and struggled to climb up the socioeconomic ladder, especially women; (iii) children with parents in the affected cohorts have higher dropout rates in secondary and a lower probability of college enrolment. These results demonstrate that the political capture of higher education in non-democracies hinders social mobility and leads to a persistent reduction in human capital accumulation, even after democratization.