Editing Economy of Chile (section)

== Social inequalities ==
By 2021, the combined wealth of Chile's billionaires represented 16.1% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |title=Riqueza extrema: Chile, el país donde los ultrarricos tienen el patrimonio más grande de América Latina |language=es |work=BBC News Mundo |url=https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-60396723 |access-date=2023-05-28}}</ref>

Historians generally explain the origin of the social gap by tracing it back to colonial times, when most land was divided between Spaniards and their descendants. This gave rise to the [[hacienda]], in which society was divided between owners, employees, tenants and workers. Since this agrarian inequality, the concentration of wealth has spread to other economic sectors that exploit natural resources, such as mining. In more recent history, social inequality deepened in the 1970s and 1980s under [[Augusto Pinochet]]'s regime, with the [[privatization]] of public enterprises in favor of large family fortunes, the repression of trade unions and the rejection of the welfare state. As social mobility is very low in Chile, social status is often passed down from generation to generation.<ref name=":0" />