Calculando la vejez: Gestión previsional en trabajadores/as de bajos ingresos

Abstract

The Chilean pension system is a milestone regarding the institutionalization of individual responsibility and individual decisions as determinant of the pension performance. Few assessments have been made, however, to how people make decisions in this system. From a qualitative study, the following article explores how low-income workers living in Santiago make their pension decisions. Using recent perspectives in economic sociology, the article provides a dynamic interpretation of the possibilities of social agency in a complex and novel scenario, focusing on the construction of calculability frameworks that permit to make decisions and the structural and institutional elements that condition them. The last ones overflow the constructed frameworks and make necessary reframing processes through which the pension management intermingles with strategies for the generation of current incomes.