SAN GABRIEL, Chile — At 4 p.m. sharp on a chilly October afternoon, more than a dozen women walked onto the main road of this tiny Andean town and launched a protest that backed up traffic for blocks. The women wanted their local government to build more sewer lines, and they’d taken it upon themselves to force the issue. Many of them were single mothers, separated or divorced from their husbands. Those who were still married were living alone while their spouses worked hundreds of miles away in northern Chile. ‘There are no men left in this town,’ said Julia Severino, 24, who manned the blockade with her young son. ‘So we women, we’re taking matters into our hands.’ The women of San Gabriel have plenty of company in Latin America. Across the region, a major social shift is under way as traditional, two-parent households led by men give way to growing numbers of families run by women, many of them single mothers. More women are completing their educations, earning their own incomes and reducing their dependence on male breadwinners. They’re also having fewer children. The change has overturned age-old traditions […]