Population, territory and sustainable development

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Lastly, in the case of Ecuador, the 2010 census shows that the relationship between
socioeconomic status and the impact of migration on human resources is more complex than is apparent
at first glance. In fact, figure VII.6 shows that in Ecuador, migration tends to reduce educational
inequalities between provinces. This is due largely to the educational gains generated by migration to
eastern provinces with low levels of education, but also to the fact that among these provinces of the
Sierra, there are some that gain in terms of years of schooling thanks to migration and others that lose.
Thus, in Ecuador, there has been a gradual and partial change in the historical relationship between
migration and territorial poverty and the way it is perpetuated. The 2001 and 2010 censuses show that
in this country, migration is ceasing to be a poverty trap (at least in terms of education) for the Andean
provinces. The figures of table VII.9 corroborate this statement. For almost all provinces (with the
exception of Manabí and Pichincha), out-migration continues to have a negative impact on the level of
education, owing to the point, discussed earlier, concerning the educational selectivity of migration.
Conversely, in-migration tends to raise education in almost all provinces, and in several of the Sierra
provinces, this impact exceeds that of out-migration, so that the final outcome is an educational gain
due to migration.
Figure VII.6
ECUADOR: IMPACT OF MIGRATION ON SCHOOLING (POPULATION
AGED 25 TO 39), 2010 CENSUS
(Percentage variation in the number of years of schooling)
3.0
2.5
y = -0.43x + 4.8278
R² = 0.2571
2.0
1.5
Percentages
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Number of years of schooling in 2005 (counterfactual)
Source: Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE) - Population Division of ECLAC, on the basis of
special processing of census microdata.