La globalización imprimió cambios sustanciales al panorama migratorio internacional de América Latina. Las transformaciones económicas, sociales y polÌticas recientes hicieron más complejo dicho fenómeno y dieron lugar a nuevas incógnitas. La migración actual está marcada por fuertes contradicciones: por una parte, por el incremento inusitado y la diversifición de los flujos, y por otra, por las restricciones impuestas a la inmigración en los países de destino

Castillo Fernández, Dídimo

Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México

   Papeles de PoblaciónISSN: 1405-7425rpapeles@uaemex.mxUniversidad Autónoma del Estado de MéxicoMéxicoCastillo F., DídimoPresentaciónPapeles de Población, vol. 13, núm. 51, enero-marzo, 2007, pp. 5-8Universidad Autónoma del Estado de MéxicoToluca, MéxicoAvailable in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=11205101   How to cite   Complete issue   More information about this article   Journal's homepage in redalyc.orgScientific Information SystemNetwork of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and PortugalNon-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiativePresentationlobalization caused substantial changes the Latin American internationalmigratory panorama. Recent economic, social and politicaltransformations made such phenomenon more complex and causedGthe appearance of new questions. Current migration is marked by intensecontradictions: on the one side, by the unusual growth and diversification of theflows; and on the other, by the restrictions imposed to immigration in thedestination countries. Migration goes everywhere nevertheless it goes towardsthe most economically prosperous countries or regions. Paradoxically, the verylogics of the dominant economic model, which empowers labor market flexibility,outsourcing and liberty to dismiss laborers, promotes impassable restrictions toworkforce’s free mobility. Capitals free flow at world scale does not correspondto the barriers imposed to immigration from the underdeveloped peripheries.The restrictions to laborers’ immigration can vary from legal dispositions toexacerbation of racism and xenophobia in the receptor countries, whichperceive migrants’ presence as a threat to their conditions of life and employment.In Latin America, the international migration scenario has changed in itsintensity, socio-demographic characteristics and the orientations of the flows.In recent decades, migratory flows have been intensified and have acquired newfeatures, such as origin, which tends to be essentially urban, the broadening ofthe regions of origin and socio demographic characteristics of the migrants’.International emigration has been basically directed towards the United States.Nonetheless, flows with alternate destinations to the traditional movement havegained importance. The hardening of the migratory controls by the United Stateshas propitiated the search of new migratory alternatives. The phenomenon hasbeen, in a certain manner, a novelty; it is suggestive of the diversificationacquired by the international migration in function of the possibilities of laboringinsertion in developed countries. Latin American transcontinental Migratorycontingents have amazingly grown and they tend to be diverse. Migration toEurope, particularly to Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Italy,CIEAP/UAEMPapeles de POBLACIÓN No. 51is twice-fold relevant: because of the magnitude and growth of the flows andbecause of the meaning it represents having had as a destination certaincountries of the region some decades ago. In this sense, migration to suchcountries even if it is shaped up by native people from the region, has, at a certainextent, the migratory character of return or direct of distant descendants ofseveral generations.Latin American migration —particularly from Mexico and Central America—towards the United States is favored by the proximity and other strategiesadopted by the migrants to cross the border. Yet, other factors of the social kindcould favor immigration to Europe. In a certain manner, the United States areceasing to be the «country of promises». The indicators of the internaldeterioration of the United States society are diverse and contrast with theEuropean society as for conditions and expectations of life of wide societysectors; particularly the access to better quality jobs, social and medical securityas well as other goods of public interest distinguish both social models; the firstcentered on the individual, the exploitation of the personal work, and the other,founded on criteria of greater collectivity and social solidarity. The risks inemployment opportunities, income, education and health are greater by the dayfor the United States’ population, both native and immigrant. The «AmericanDream» is losing its validity in relation to the limited possibilities of social growththe current laboring model offers. Distance between poor and wealthy hasbecome broader, the United States can not longer pretend to be recognized byhaving an ascendant mobility model at the reach of every single American, anda model to be followed by the rest of the countries in the world. Along the threerecent decades, with the adoption of the Neoliberal economic model, the qualityof jobs has been deteriorated, incomes have been polarized and there has beenan increment in social inequality and poverty conditions of the population. It canbe said the American model has lost its warranty and adepts.The visions of the United States and Europe give place to projects withopposite foundations and divergent possibilities. The orientation of the Europeanproject does not only seem to be more accordant to the demands of the times,nonetheless, opposite to the American Dream, the European one turns out to bebetter positioned in the current society, highly globalized, connected andinterdependent. The United States is a country in a clear social regression.January / March 2007As for the possibilities of social mobility it is not any more the promising and trust-generating place. Their general conditions of existence, even if they can besuperior to most of the countries, in several aspects have become stagnant ordecadent in recent decades. The United States is a society in decadence. Socialascension has become more difficult for an important part of the native andimmigrant population. With the deterioration of the employment qualities and theincrement in the income inequalities, poverty has grown. Average salary hasbeen deteriorated. In the country Latin American people face larger obstaclesto access opportunities of social and economic improvement. In education, thepercentage of Latin American people with university degree has not grown inrecent years. Salaries’ inequality is greater than that three decades ago. In thesaid framework, it is possible to foresee a social and laboring future scenariouncertain for migrants, especially for those with low schooling levels.In the current issue, Papeles de POBLACIÓN includes a selection of novel workson diverse topics of academic relevance and social and political importance,developed in analytical and methodological rigor by specialist in the topic thearticles deal with. The works are grouped in four thematic sections.This issue’s first section deals with recent Latin American internationalmigration, in respect to the new migratory flows and the restrictions andstrategies adopted by the migrants in the borders of crossing. The section openswith the article by María Cristina Cacopardo, Alicia Maguid and RosanaMartínez researchers from the Universidad Nacional de Luján, Argentina, onLatin American migration towards Spain. The article compares the socio-demographic characteristics and the forms of laboring insertion of the Argentineanmigrants to those of the Ecuadorians and Colombians — principal LatinAmerican countries with emigration to that country— in the Spanish labormarket and identifies the laboring insertion spaces linked to educational profile,gender, and time of migration. The following work, by María Eugenia AnguianoTéllez and Alma Paola Trejo Peña, both researechers from El Colegio de laFrontera Norte, analyzes the changes in the routes of the migratory flows dueto the hardening of the control and vigilance measures in the Mexican borderadopted by the United States’ authorities.CIEAP/UAEMPapeles de POBLACIÓN No. 51The following section deals with poverty and its measurement. It is composedby two works: the first by Gustavo Álvarez, Alicia Gómez and María FernandaOlmos, researchers from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos deArgentina, it describes some of the demographic differential in relation to thepoverty’s heterogeneity of the country based on data from the 2001 PopulationCensus and the application of the Índice de Privación Material de los Hogares,which enables identifying the intensity of the problem and the relative participationof the geographic country regions. The second article, by Araceli Damián,researcher professor from the Centro de Estudios Demográficos, Urbanos yAmbientales de El Colegio de México, refers to the comparability problems ofthe Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares and its effect in themeasurement of poverty in Mexico. According to the authoress, said survey hasserious deficiencies as for data capturing and comparability, which distortspoverty calculations in the country.Two articles on scenarios of demographic growth in Mexico make up thefollowing section: the first by Katja Kesseli and Carlos Galindo, both subscribedto the European Doctoral School of Demography, Max Planck Institute, theauthoress to the University of Helsinki and the author to the NetherlandsInterdisciplinary Demographic Institute, on scenarios of demographical growthin Mexico, performed with base on stochastic projections of the nationalpopulation for the period 2001-2050; the second work by Isaac Azuz Adeath andEvelia Rivera Arriaga, the former researcher professor from the Escuela deIngeniería de CETYS-Universidad, Campus Ensenada, the latter researcherfrom the Autonomous University of Campeche; their article deals withdemographic growth of the Mexican coastal states, it is based on a theoreticalmodel of demographic growth, Boltzian-Sigmoidal, constructed from the availablecensual information for each coastal state of Mexico.The final section topics are fertility and reproductive health. It is composedby an article by Humberto González Galbán, Yolanda Palma and María deLourdes Montes researchers from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte and theAutonomous University of Nayarit, respectively, the article features a regionalanalysis of the fertility proximate determinants in Mexico; finally, the work ofAlfonso Mejía Modesto, researcher from the Population Research and AdvancedStudies of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, on the currentsituation and future scenarios of sexual and reproductive health in the State ofMexico.Dídimo Castillo F.Director

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