Abstract

PIP: The characteristics of rural urban migrants arriving over the 1929-68 period in Bogota, Colombia were examined, focusing on male migrants and the effect of migrant selectivity over time on the educational and occupational levels of Bogota and the predominantly rural region where most migrants to Bogota originate. Data were obtained primarily from a stratified (by social class) random sample of 3579 men aged 15-64 living in Bogota in September 1968 who were interviewed briefly to determine their age, place of birth, age at arrival to Bogota (for migrants only), occupation, and marital status. A subsample of 871 married men, age 20-54 years, further stratified by migratory status (migrant and urban born) were interviewed in greater depth to determine selection features of their social and residential background and their migration and occupational history. These urban survey data were supplemented by a rural survey: a criterion sample (N = 256) of married men, age 20-54 years, in 11 rural villages in a region of heavy outmigration to Bogota. This rural sample included both nonmigrants and return migrants who had lived in a city for at least 1 year before returning to the rural area. Generally, the origin of the migrants was clear, since only 9% had lived in more than 1 rural place and only 12% had lived in an intermediate city before moving to Bogota. The migrants tended to come more from the small towns than from either the rural areas or the intermediate cities. Migrants clearly did not originate proportionately from the various occupational strata in the rural area. Relative to rural nonmigrants, migrants were less likely to be sons of landless farmers and more likely to be sons of store owners, government bureaucrats, and similar middle income groups in the rural towns. Return migrants relative to both migrants and rural nonmigrants were more likely to be sons of landowners, indicating that ties with the land may be a principal reason for returning. Mean years of schooling were highest for the fathers of return migrants (4.2 years), next highest for fathers of migrants who have remained in the metropolis (2.8), and lowest for the fathers of the rural nonmigrants (2.1). In accord with their social backgrounds, migrants themselves revealed higher levels of schooling than rural nonmigrants. At least part of the explanation for the relatively constant levels of schooling among rural urban migrants over the past 40 years is related to the fact that male migrants tended to come with at least some education and that the level of education among those who have attended school does not appear to have changed greatly in the rural area. There did not appear to have been any systematic changes in the difficulty of obtaining work over the 40-year period, and the mean skill level of work remained at about 1.9 on the 6 point scale. Thus it appears that the structure of work opportunities for incoming migrants did not change much.