GENDER, CARE AND OLD AGE: WOMEN "IN THE FIELD" OF PAID WORK AND CARE WORK IN SANTIAGO DE CHILE

In Chile, the increase in the elderly population has raised concerns about learning more regarding their level of well-being, which is affected by multiple categories of social differentiation (socioeconomic level, gender, ethnicity). This article presents results from an anthropological study, whose objective was to understand how access to well-being for working class older women is affected by the place that care work and paid work has occupied in their lives. Through the life stories of 9 older women from the district of Independencia -Santiago de Chile-, it shows how they were able to combine care work and paid work throughout their lives thanks to the support of female family members, and how they continue to do so also in their old age. Among the results, it is emphasized that accepting as natural the way women manage care work and paid work implies a failure to recognize the time that women invest in them throughout their lives and, consequently, to understand why their well-being when they are older, is affected by this accumulation of responsibilities.