The Impact Of Chilean Vocational Education Policy On The Economic Inclusion Of Disadvantaged Communities In The Country

In Chile,immigrants and indigenous people are a vulnerable group in society,both of whom have experienced social exclusion or still face difficulties in integrating into Chilean society.In an era of increasing dependence on knowledge for development,economic and employment-oriented vocational education has an important impact on the economic integration process of immigrants.Through the collection and analysis of official administrative data from the Chilean Statistics Institute and the Carson Survey,this paper finds that both immigrants and natives are disadvantaged in the labor market.Analyzed from the perspective of capital conversion theory,immigrants’ capital structure and the entire process of acquiring and accumulating capital present many challenges and,equally important,the difficulty of converting the capital they already have.Immigrants’ access to economic capital is stable,as evidenced by their high labor force participation rates and employment rates.However,the process of accumulating economic capital is unstable,especially after 2010,and their labor market adjustment costs have become higher,making the quality of employment unstable.The lack of political connections and the high cost of cultural capital accumulation among immigrants are reflected in the disadvantages of their job treatment and benefits.In addition,they are more vulnerable to different types of abuse,especially at the beginning of their arrival in Chile,due to the lack of social support and contact networks.Another group positioned as vulnerable in Chile is the indigenous population,whose capital accumulation process faces challenges compared to the economic integration of immigrants: first,the lack of economic capital,which keeps their poverty rate higher than other groups.Second,political connections in social capital are difficult to convert into economic capital.Due to their special historical evolution and development,they have a relatively low labor force participation rate and are engaged in a solidified type of economic activity,and to this day,the primary industry is still the industry in which they have a high participation rate.Third,the hindrance of symbolic capital to the acquisition and accumulation of economic capital.The lack of capital and structural imbalances affects the process of economic integration of disadvantaged communities,while at the same time,the poor conversion of capital poses an obstacle to social reproduction.Specifically,immigrants can encounter different types of challenges and difficulties in terms of academic and labor skills certification,in the choice of vocational education institutions and programs,in the matching and transition process between study and work,and in the industries in which they mainly work.Immigrants are also affected in a more or less negative way due to their language background,family background,and their disadvantages in terms of intergenerational transmission effects,social network status,and social participation.Aboriginal people have the same challenges as immigrant groups,and more specifically,the low level of social support for the Aboriginal language education sector and the poor or even lack of vocational education and training are a major employment disadvantage for this group.In addition,due to their historical evolution and lifestyle,indigenous people have been in a disadvantaged socioeconomic and cultural position,which,combined with the social class division and solidification issues in Chile and Latin America as a whole,makes it more difficult for them to accumulate and transfer capital in vocational education.