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Migrant-Native Socioeconomic Differences in Latin American Cities: A Structural Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Jorge Balán
Jorge Balán*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Almost without exception, Latin American countries have experienced rapid urbanization during recent decades. The population living in urban areas, mainly that in large cities, has been growing much faster than the rural population. There is, of course, a wide range of variation between different countries. Venezuela's urban population grew during the fifties at a rate ten times that of the rural population while Costa Rica's rates of urban and rural growth were approximately equal. Internal migration accounts for a large part of the increase in the urban population and especially for the difference between urban and rural rates of growth.

Type
Topical Review
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1969 , pp. 3 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © 1969, by Latin American Research Review

Footnotes

*

This is a revised version of a paper presented to the Conference on Human Mobility and Social Change in Latin America and Africa, University of Florida, Gainesville, December 1967. Thanks are due to Harley L. Browning and Elizabeth Jelin for help in the preparation of this paper, which was written while the author was with the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin.

References

Notes

1. See Carmen A. Miró, “The Population of Latin America,” Demography, 1, 1964, pp. 15-41; John D. Durand and César A. Peláez, “Patterns of Urbanization in Latin America,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 43, Number 4, Part 2, October, 1965, pp. 166-191; Eduardo E. Arriaga, “Components of City Growth in Selected Latin American Countries,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 46, Number 2, Part 1, April, 1968, pp. 237-252; and Harley L. Browning, “Recent Trends in Latin American Urbanization,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 316, March, 1958, pp. 111-120.

2. Juan C. Elizaga, “Internal Migrations in Latin America,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 43, Number 4, Part 2, October, 1965, pp. 144-161; Louis J. Ducoff, “The Role of Migration in the Demographic Development of Latin America,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 43, Number 4, Part 2, October, 1965, pp. 197-210.

3. Richard M. Morse, “Recent Research on Latin American Urbanization: A Selective Survey with Commentary,” Latin American Research Review, I, 1, Fall, 1965, p. 48.

4. See, for example, the articles by J. Matos Mar, Andrew Pearse, and Gino Germani, in Philip M. Hauser (ed.), Urbanization in Latin America. Paris: Unesco, 1961; William P. Mangin, “The Role of Regional Associations in the Adaptation of Rural Population in Perú,” Sociologus, 9, 1, 1959, pp. 21-36; and especially Mangin's recent review in “Latin American Squatter Settlements: A Problem and a Solution,” Latin American Research Review, II, 3, Summer, 1967, pp. 65-98.

5. Gino Germani, “The Process of Urbanization in Argentina,” paper presented to the Seminar on Urbanization Problems in Latin America, Unesco, Santiago, 1958 (mimeo), p. 44.

6. This “fact” is subject to considerable debate. Mangin includes in his list of standard myths one stating that “the squatter settlements are formed by rural people (Indians where possible) coming directly from ‘their’ farms.” (Mangin, “Latin American Squatter Settlements ..” op. cit. p. 66.

7. This crude definition has several limitations: 1) return migration is left out completely, although in some cases it may be quite important numerically; 2) place of residence during the formative years (5-15) may be more relevant than place of birth, since many migrants are so classified only because of the accident of birth, having migrated to the city at very young ages; and 3) the direction of migration cannot be fully assessed knowing only place of birth and place of residence. These limitations are discussed more extensively in Harley L. Browning and Waltraut Feindt, “Patrones de migración a Monterrey,” in Jorge Balán, Harley Browning and Elizabeth Jelin de Balán (eds.), Movilidad social, migración y fecundidad en Monterrey Metropolitano, Monterrey: Centro de Investigaciones Económicas, 1967, Chapter 2.

8. Differential migration according to other variables, mainly age and sex, has been studied more extensively than differentials according to socioeconomic status. Clearly, we have better standards of measurement—sex ratios, age structures—for the former than for the latter. For a general discussion of differential migration, see Donald J. Bogue, “Internal Migration,” in Philip M. Hauser and Otis Dudley Duncan (eds.), The Study of Population, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959, pp. 486-509, and his “Techniques and Hypotheses for the Study of Differential Migration: Some Notes from an Experiment with U. S. Data,” in International Population Conference, New York, 1961, London: Union internationale pour l'étude scientifique de la population, 1963, Volume 1, pp. 405-411. For data on Latin American countries, see Elizaga, op. cit.

9. The literature dealing with the definition of “urban” is very large. Since in this paper a relatively crude approach to measurement will be used, we need not discuss extensively problems in defining “urban” and “rural.” For an introduction to problems of definition, see Jack P. Gibbs (ed.), Urban Research Methods, Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1961, Chapter 13.

10. The relatively high degree of selectivity of urban-to-urban migrants does not seem to be peculiar to the Latin American countries. It was found in the United States, where after a careful examination of a national sample Blau and Duncan concluded that “… urban migration is selective of men with greater potentialities for occupational success, although farm-to-farm migration does not exhibit such a process of selection.” See Peter M. Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan, The American Occupational Structure, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967, p. 258.

11. Interregional migration between rural areas has been common before rural-to-urban migration became massive. Thus, Germani points out the existence of migratory streams between provinces in Argentina (Germani, op. cit., p. 23), and migration from the highlands to the lowlands in southern Mexico and Guatemala have been investigated by several authors (see Richard N. Adams, “Rural Labor,” in John J. Johnson (ed.), Continuity and Change in Latin America, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964, pp. 49-78).

12. The distinction between “pioneer” and “mass” migration points out precisely the correlation between the difficulty and rarity of migration, on the one hand, and its high selectivity on the other. See William Peterson, Population, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961, Chapter 20.

13. See Alvan O. Zarate, Principales patrones de migración interna en Guatemala, 1964. Guatemala: Seminario de Integración Social Guatemalteca, 1967; Robert G. Burnight, “Internal Migration in Mexico,” Estadística, 16, Number 58, March, 1958, pp. 65-77.

14. See, for example, E.C.L.A.'s statement in “Creation of Employment Opportunities in Relation to Labour Supply,” in Philip M. Hauser (ed.), op. cit., pp. 118-148.

15. Creation of these job opportunities cannot be equated simply with the increase in total employment, since this would include a good number of underemployed people. Thus, the expression “sectors of high productivity” stands for sectors without underemployment, manufacturing being generally the best example. The counter examples are petty commerce, domestic services and home industries. For some ways of measuring creation of jobs in sectors of high productivity, see “Structural Changes in Employment Within the Context of Latin American Economic Development,” Economic Bulletin for Latin America, 10, Number 2, October, 1965, pp. 165-168.

16. Of course, kinship and friendship ties also play a considerable role in the way in which people obtain jobs, but this factor will not be brought into the analytic schema.

17. S. M. Miller, “The Credential Society,” Trans-action, 5, 2, December, 1967, p. 2.

18. The problem here is that the sons of migrants are, technically, natives. But theoretically, assimilation of migrants to the occupational structure is only completed when migrant origin has no influence at all upon the occupational achievement of people. Thus, “migrant” origin refers to the individual being a migrant, or his ancestors.

19. See Blau and Duncan, op. cit., Chapter 7.

20. One city, Lima, for which information is available was not considered in this paper, since some of the results were judged to be questionable and there was not time to check the accuracy of the information with the authors of the study.

21. Gino Germani, Estructura social de la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Raigal, 1955, pp. 75-77. The estimates were corrected in a later publication (Germani, “The Process of Urbanization in Argentina,” op. cit.) from which they are taken.

22. Germani, Estructura social …, op. cit.

23. The difference between recent migrants and other groups, based on their low levels of education, concentration in villas miserias, and ethnic characteristics, was made relevant due to the support many of them provided to the Peronist movement. See, for instance, Robert J. Alexander, The Peron Era. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951.

24. See Aldo Ferrer, The Argentine Economy, translated by Marjory M. Urquidi. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967, Parts 4 and 5.

25. Idem.

26. Gino Germani, “La movilidad social en la Argentina,” Appendix to Seymour Martin Lipset and Reinhard Bendix, Movilidad social en la sociedad industrial. Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1963, pp.317-365.

27. See José Fabio Barbosa Da Silva, A Sociological Analysis of Internal Migration in Brazil. Gainesville: University of Florida, unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1964; also Jacques Lambert, Os Dois Brasis. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Educacionais, 1959.

28. Bertram Hutchinson et al., Mobilidade e trabalho: um estudo na cidade de Sao Paulo. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Educacionais, 1960.

29. Bertram Hutchinson, “Structural and Exchange Mobility in the Assimilation of Immigrants to Brazil,” Population Studies, 12, November, 1958, pp. 111-120.

30. Juan C. Elizaga, “A Study of Migration to Greater Santiago (Chile),” Demography, 3, 2, 1966, pp. 352-377.

31. Patterns of migration to Santiago are discussed in Bruce H. Herrick, Urban Migration and Economic Development in Chile, Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1965, and by Elizaga, op. cit., pp. 359-362. Arriaga, op. cit., gives estimates of natural increase and net migration for urban centers classified in size-classes.

32. Herrick, op. cit., p. 80.

33. See Robert Gordon Greer, The Demographic Impact of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1921, Austin: The University of Texas, unpublished M. A. thesis, 1966.

34. See Harley L. Browning, Urbanization in Mexico, Berkeley: University of California, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1962.

35. Idem, pp. 197-200.

36. The educational distribution of all migrants and natives is not available at this time. For a partial examination of the 1.5 percent census sample, see Donald Reed Case, Differentiation Among Manual Workers in Mexico City, Austin: The University of Texas, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1967.

37. See Balán, Browning and Jelin de Balán (eds.), op. cit.

38. Harley L. Browning and Waltraut Feindt, “Diferencias entre la población nativa y la migrante en Monterrey,” Demografía y Economía, II, 2, 1968, pp. 183-204.

39. A summary discussion of Monterrey's industrialization is given in Jorge Balán, The Process of Stratification in an Industrializing Society: The Case of Monterrey, Mexico. Austin: The University of Texas unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 1968, Chapter 2.

40. The effects of size-class of the community of origin on social mobility are analyzed in Jorge Balán, “Are Farmers' Sons Handicapped in the City?” Rural Sociology, 33, 2, June 1968, pp. 160-174.

41. See Louis J. Ducoff, Los recursos humanos de Centroamérica, Panamá, y México en 1950-1980 y sus relaciones con algunos aspectos del desarrollo económico. United Nations, 1960.

42. Naciones Unidas, CEPAL, Aspectos demográficos y socioeconómicos del Area Metropolitana de San Salvador (resultados de una encuesta), 1966, mimeo (Document number E/CN.12/CCE/333/TAO/LAT). A summary of the results is given in Louis J. Ducoff, “The Migrant Population of a Metropolitan Area in a Developing Country: A Preliminary Report on a Case Study of San Salvador,” in International Population Conference, op. cit., pp. 428-435.

43. Naciones Unidas, op. cit., p. 42.

44. See Alvan O. Zarate, op. cit.

45. The data are analyzed in Deanne Lannoix Termini, Socio-Economic and Demographic Characteristics of the Population of Guatemala City With Special Reference to Migrant-Non-migrant Differences. Austin: The University of Texas, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1968.