was contributing to the pension system during the CASEN 1998 (CONT98) twelve months prior to the PRIESO; and whether the respondent has met the contributory requirements (240 months of contributions) to be eligible for the minimum pension guarantee from the government (MPG<sup>51</sup> ) - the contributory pension system's remaining pooling element against the risk of poverty in old age.<sup>52</sup> Further, I have included contribution density (CONDEN) as a right-hand-side variable. CONDEN should control for a host of possibly omitted variables affecting the decision to contribute over respondents' working lives, and CONT98 for autocorrelation in contributions between consecutive periods.

The results of the probit regressions on the sample of men are shown in Table 9. Those on the sample of women in Table 10. Each table includes two specifications. The estimated coefficients in PROBIT 1 for men and women are discussed first.

After controlling for age, education, position in the household, and factors that could determine individuals' access to the pension system, household composition significantly affects the probability that men and women are contributing, albeit in very different ways. The share of children in the household does not have a significant effect on the participation of men, however, every additional child aged 10 to 13, significantly (1% level) increases the likelihood that women are contributing by 0.7%. This may be evidence of older children taking on household responsibilities, leaving mothers free to enter the labor market. The positive significance of the number of other women of working age (14 - 60) in the household (NYFEM, significant at 10% level), may reflect a similar intra-household allocation of labor. The estimated coefficients on these variables may, therefore, be capturing yet another factor determining access rather than a preference for informal pooling arrangements.

The share of elderly men in the household increases the likelihood that men of working age contribute (by 0.07%), while the share of elderly women lowers the likelihood of contribution (by 0.4%). Neither variable is significant in the sample of women. The positive impact of resident elderly men may be related to the learning effect captured by income from contributory pension benefits discussed in the previous section - as might the share of elderly women, in that this may be evidence of traditional, family based pooling arrangements that differ according to gender. However, in the probit, the estimated coefficient on the contributory pension variable LJUB is negative. Removing the share of elderly men and women one at a time from the probit does not change the sign or significance of LJUB. Given the strong positive significance of LJUB in the tobit " The MPG variable is a binary that equals I if the respondents reported months of contributions are equal to or greater than 240. This is different from the "threshold" ratio discussed in the previous section, where it was assumed that a respondent would qualify for the minimum benefit if they maintained the same rate of contributions for the remainder of their working lives.

> **52** It is worth pointing out again, that two government-organized pooling devices to insure against poverty among the elderly remain in Chile after the 1981 reform: the minimum pension guarantee, conditional on contributions, and the means tested PASIS.

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