Orphans and Family Disintegration in Chile

Abstract

The first orphanage in Chile dates from 1756. By the beginning of the twentieth century one in ten newborn babies in Santiago were abandoned to the orphanage of the capital city. Seventy percent of the children who were admitted to the orphanage were less than one month old. Over 80% were illegitimate. The survival prospects of institutionalized orphans were bleak and scarcely improved over the half century from 1875 to 1925. At the beginning of this period, 81% died before their eighth birthday. The figure declined to 74% as early as 1906 but then stuck there. Although abandoned children bore tokens which might have been used to establish identity to reclaim the children, few left the orphanage alive.