Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T20:12:18.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Other Europeans: Immigration into Latin America and the International Labour Market (1870–1930)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

Blanca Sánchez Alonso
Blanca Sánchez Alonso
Affiliation:
Universidad San Pablo-CEU
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Not all Europeans migrated to the United States. Between 1879 and 1930 around 13 million of Europeans went to Latin America; however, Latin America is not fully incorporated into current debates on the cost and benefits from Atlantic migration. This paper surveys Latin America's immigration from the late nineteenth century to 1930. It assesses inferences about European migrants in Latin America derived from the experience of migrants in the United States and questions its validity. The topics covered here include migration trends and chronology, national origin of the flows and the evolution of real wages. New data on the cost of passages for transatlantic migration is also presented. This is followed by an examination of the immigrants' contribution to economic growth in Latin America dealing basically with the issue of human capital brought in by European immigrants. The extent to which immigrants alter the composition of the labour force and the demographic structure, both in the short and the long run is also examined.

Resumen

No todos los europeos emigraron a Estados Unidos. Entre 1879 y 1930 alrededor de 13 millones de europeos fueron a América Latina. Sin embargo, América Latina no está plenamente incorporada a los debates actuales sobre costes y beneficios de las migraciones atlánticas. Este artículo presenta un estado de la cuestión de la inmigración en América Latina desde finales del siglo XIX hasta 1930. Evalúa las inferencias realizadas a partir de la experiencia de los inmigrantes europeos en Estados Unidos y se cuestiona su validez para el caso latinoamericano. Los temas tratados en la primera sección incluyen las tendencias migratorias y su cronología, el origen nacional de los flujos y la evolución de los salarios reales entre países receptores y emisores. El trabajo presenta nuevos datos sobre el coste del transporte en la migración internacional. Una segunda sección examina la contribución de los inmigrantes al crecimiento eco nómico de América Latina, con especial énfasis en el capital humano de los inmigrantes europeos. El impacto de la inmigración sobre la mano de obra y la estructura demográfica de los países de inmigración, en el corto y en el largo plazo, se analiza en la sección siguiente.

Keywords

mercado internacional de trabajoinmigraciónAmérica Latinainternational labour marketimmigrationLatin America
Type
Articles/Artículos
Information
Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , Invierno 2007 , pp. 395 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © Instituto Figuerola de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, J. (1994): Frontier Development. Land, Labour and Capital on the Wheatlands of Argentina and Canada, 1890–1914, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bethell, L. (ed.) (1986): The Cambridge History of Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baily, S. L. (1999): Immigrants in the Land of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and in New York City, 1870 to 1914, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Baines, D. (1985): Migration in a Mature Economy. Emigration and Internal Migration in England and Wales, 1861–1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.—Google Scholar
Baines, D. (1991): Emigration From Europe, 1815–1930, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Bertola, L.; Calicchio, L.; Camou, M., and Porcile, G. (1999): «Southern Cone real Wage Compared: A Purchasing Power Parity Approach to Convergence and Divergence Trends, 1870–1996», Working Paper DT, 44, Unidad Multidisciplinaria, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Montevideo.Google Scholar
Bloom, D. E.; Canning, D., and Sevilla, J. (2002): The Demographic Dividend: a New perspective on the Economic Consequences of the Population Change, Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Publications.Google Scholar
Brettell, C. B. (1986): Men who Migrate Women who Wait. Population and History in a Portuguese Parish, Princeton: Princeton university Press.Google Scholar
Bulmer-Thomas, V. (1994): The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cinel, D. (1991): The National Integration of Italian Return Migration, 1870–1929, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cipolla, C. (1969): Literacy and Development in the West, Baltimore: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Coale, A. J., and Hoover, E. M. (1958): Population Growth and Economic Development in Low-Income Countries, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Conrad, R. (1975): «The Planter Class and the Debate over Chinese Immigration to Brazil, 1850–1893», International Migration Review, 19, 1, pp. 41–45.Google Scholar
Cortés Conde, R. (1979): El progreso argentino, 1880–1914, Buenos Aires: Ed. Sudamericana.Google Scholar
Costa Leite, J. (1993): «Portugal and Emigration, 1855–1914», Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Dean, W. (1969): The Industrialization of São Paulo, 1880–1945, Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Díaz Alejandro, C. (1970): Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic, New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Eltis, D. (1983): «Free and Coerced Transatlantic Migrations: Some Comparisons», American Historical Review, 88, 2, pp. 251–280.Google Scholar
Engerman, S. L., and Sofoloff, K. L. (2005): «Colonialism, Inequality and Long-Run Paths of Development», NBER Working Paper, 11057.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faini, R., and Venturini, A. (1994): «Italian Emigration in the Pre War Period», in Hatton, Timothy J. and Williamson, Jeffrey G. (eds.): Migration and the International Labor Market, 1850–1939, London: Routledge, pp. 72–90.Google Scholar
Ferenczi, I., and Willcox, W. F. (1929, 1931): International Migrations, vols. 1 and 2, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Flora, P. (1973): «Historical Processes of Social Mobilization: Urbanization and Literacy», in Eisenstadt, S. N. and Rokkan, S. (eds.): Building States and Nations: Analyses by Region, London: Sage, pp. 213–256.Google Scholar
Gallo, E. (1983): La Pampa gringa. La colonización agrícola en Santa Fe, 1870–1879, Buenos Aires: Ed. Sudamericana.Google Scholar
Germani, G. (1955): Estructura social de la Argentina, Buenos Aires: Ed. Raigal.Google Scholar
Gould, J. D. (1979): «European Inter-Continental Emigration, 1815–1914: Patterns and Causes», Journal of European Economic History, 8, 3, pp. 593–679.Google Scholar
Gould, J. D. (1980): «European Inter-Continental Emigration. The Road Home: Return Migration from the USA», Journal of European Economic History, 9, 1, pp. 41–113.Google Scholar
Hatton, T. J., and Williamson, J. G. (2005): Global Migration and the World Economy. Two Centuries of Policy and Performance, Cambridge: Mass., MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatton, T. J., and Williamson, J. G. (1994): «Latecomers to Mass Migration: The Latin Experience», in Hatton, T. J. and Williamson, J. G. (eds.): Migration and the International Labor Market, 1850–1939, New York: Routledge, pp. 5–71.Google Scholar
Hatton, T. J., and Williamson, J. G. (1998): The Age of Mass Migration. Causes and Economic Impact, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holloway, T. H. (1980): Immigrants on the Land. Coffee and Society in São Paulo, 1886–1934, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kelley, A. C. (1988): «Economic Consequences of Population Change in the Third World», Journal of Economic Literature, 26, pp. 1685–1728.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1983): «The Integration of Italian Immigrants in to the United States and Argentina: A Comparative Analysis», American Historical Review, 88, 2, pp. 306–329.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1996): La inmigración española en Brasil, Gijón: Fundación Archivo de Indianos.Google Scholar
Klein, H. S. (1999): The Atlantic Slave Trade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leff, N. H. (1982): Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil. Economic Structure and Change, 1822–1947, vol. I, London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Leff, N. H. (1997): «Economic Development in Brazil, 1822–1913», in Haber, S. (ed.): How Latin America Fell Behind. Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800–1914, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 34–64.Google Scholar
Lewis, W. A. (1978): Growth and Fluctuations, 1870–1913, London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Lida, C. E. (comp.) (1994): Una inmigración privilegiada. Comerciantes, empresarios y profesionales en México en los siglos XIX y XX, Madrid: Alianza.Google Scholar
Losada, A. F. (1999): Cuba: población y economía entre la independencia y la revolución, Vigo: Universidad de Vigo.Google Scholar
Maddison, A. (2001): The World Economy. A Millenial Perspective, Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Maluquer de Motes, J. (1992): Nación e Immigración: los españoles en Cuba (siglos XIX y XX), Gijón: Ed. Júcar.Google Scholar
Merrick, T. W., and Graham, D. H. (1979): Population and Economic Development in Brazil, 1800 to the Present, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Miguez, E. J. (1993): «La movilidad social de nativos e inmigrantes en la frontera bonaersense en el siglo XIX», Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, 24, pp. 139–169.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. (1993): International Historical Statistics. The Americas 1750–1988, Basingtoke, England: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Moya, J. C. (1998): Cousins and Strangers. Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930, Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moya, J. C. (2006): «A Continent of Immigrants: Postcolonial Shifts in the Western Hemisphere», Hispanic American Historical Review, 81, 1, pp. 1–28.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, K., and Williamson, J. G. (1997): «Around the European Periphery, 1870–1913: Globalization, Schooling and Growth», European Review of Economic History, 1, pp. 153–191.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, K., and Williamson, J. G. (1999): Globalization and History. The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rechini de Lattes, Z., and Lattes, A. E. (1975): La población argentina, Buenos Aires: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos.Google Scholar
Rial Roade, J. (1980): Estadísticas Históricas del Uruguay, 1850–1930, Montevideo: Centro de Informaciones y Estudios del Uruguay.Google Scholar
Sacerdote, B. I. (1995): «On Transport Cost From Europe to the New World», Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Albornoz, N. (1986): «The Population of Latin America, 1850–1930», in Bethell, Leslie (ed.): The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 121–151.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Alonso, B. (2000a): «European Emigration in the Late Nineteenth century: The Paradoxical Case of Spain», Economic History Review, 52, 2, pp. 309–329.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Alonso, B. (2000b): «Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed Behind: Explaining Emigration from the Regions of Spain, 1880–1914», Journal of Economic History, 60 (3), pp. 730–755.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Alonso, B. (1995): Las causas de la emigración española, 1880–1930, Madrid: Alianza.Google Scholar
Sánchez-Alonso, B. (1992): La inmigración española en Argentina. Siglos XIX y XX, Gijón: Ed. Júcar.Google Scholar
Solberg, C. E. (1987): The Prairies and the Pampas: Agrarian Policies in Canada and Argentina, 1880–1930, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, A. M. (1997): «Latifundia as a Malefactor in Economic Development? Scale, Tenancy and Agriculture in the Pampas, 1880–1994», Research in Economic History, 17, pp. 261–300.Google Scholar
Taylor, A. M. (1994): «Mass Migration to Distant Southern Shores. Argentina and Australia, 1870–1939», in Hatton, Timothy J. and Williamson, Jeffrey G. (eds.): Migration and the International Labor Market, 1850–1939, London: Routlegde, pp. 91–115.Google Scholar
Taylor, A. M. (1992): «External Dependence, Demographic Burdens and Argentine Economic Development After the Belle Epoque», Journal of Economic History, 52, pp. 907–936.Google Scholar
Thistlethwaite, F. (1960): «Migration from Europe Overseas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries», reprinted in Vecoli, R. J. and Sinke, S. M. (1991): A Century of European Migrations, 1830–1930, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 17–57.Google Scholar
Vázquez Gonzalez, A. (1999): «La emigración gallega a América, 1830–1930», Ph D. dissertation, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. G. (1999): «Real Wages Inequality and Globalization in Latin America before 1940», in Aceña, Pablo Martín, Meisel, Adolfo and Newland, Carlos (eds.): «La historia económica en América Latina», Revista de Historia Económica, Special issue, pp. 101–142.Google Scholar