Population, territory and sustainable development
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of current trends, contexts and issues in the spheres of population, territory and sustainable development and examine their public policy implications. Three themes run through the report. The first two are laid out in the empirical chapters (III through X); the third is taken up in the closing chapter. Using the most recent data available (including censuses conducted in the 2010s), the first theme describes and tracks location and spatial mobility patterns for the population of Latin America, focusing on certain kinds of territory. The second explores the linkages between these patterns and sustainable development in different kinds of territory in Latin America and the Caribbean. The third offers considerations and policy proposals for fostering a consistent, synergistic relationship between population location and spatial mobility, on the one hand, and sustainable development, on the other, in the kinds of territory studied.
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of current trends, contexts and issues in the spheres of population, territory and sustainable development and examine their public policy implications. Three themes run through the report. The first two are laid out in the empirical chapters (III through X); the third is taken up in the closing chapter. Using the most recent data available (including censuses conducted in the 2010s), the first theme describes and tracks location and spatial mobility patterns for the population of Latin America, focusing on certain kinds of territory. The second explores the linkages between these patterns and sustainable development in different kinds of territory in Latin America and the Caribbean. The third offers considerations and policy proposals for fostering a consistent, synergistic relationship between population location and spatial mobility, on the one hand, and sustainable development, on the other, in the kinds of territory studied.
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rural areas. According to the same table, the rural population is older because of migration: in the 2005-<br />
2010 period, migration tended to increase the proportion of older persons by 1.85% in rural areas <strong>and</strong><br />
reduce it by 2.3% in cities. As emphasized in earlier studies (Rodríguez <strong>and</strong> Busso, 2009), this impact is<br />
not due to child-selective rural-urban migration but rather to young-adult selectivity, which has indirect<br />
effects on the proportion of other age groups.<br />
In sum, the results obtained using the 2010 Panama census fully support the statements above on<br />
the effects of rural-urban migration on the gender <strong>and</strong> age structure in the two areas –effects that<br />
exacerbate these differences between the two areas. For age composition at least, the effect is clearly<br />
favourable for urban areas (in that it reinforces the so-called demographic dividend) <strong>and</strong> unfavourable for<br />
rural ones.<br />
Migration also tends to be education-selective, although the pattern can have paradoxical effects<br />
in countries with a very large rural-urban education gap. In general, emigrants moving from rural to urban<br />
areas have a higher education level than the inhabitants of rural areas who do not migrate, even after<br />
controlling for age selectivity. It thus tends to act as a deflator of the average education level <strong>and</strong><br />
normally is not offset by the higher education level of immigrants from urban areas compared with rural<br />
non-migrants. In short, migration generally tends to reduce the average education level of the rural<br />
population. But it also tends to reduce the education level in urban areas, because migrants from the<br />
countryside have a lower level of schooling than urban non-migrants. These results are confirmed for<br />
Panama using the 2010 census (tables VIII.6 <strong>and</strong> VIII.7). The two areas show a clear difference in years<br />
of schooling: 11.7 years in urban areas versus 7.1 years in rural areas for the population aged 30 to 49<br />
(table VIII.6) <strong>and</strong> 10.7 years versus 5.9 years in the case of heads of household (table VIII.7). For both of<br />
these population groups, rural-urban migration reduces the education level in both rural <strong>and</strong> urban areas.<br />
The relative impact is stronger in rural areas, though, where it reduces the average education level of the<br />
population aged 30 to 49 years by 2% <strong>and</strong> that of heads of household by 3.4%.<br />
The difference between the two areas holds when the findings are broken down into immigration<br />
<strong>and</strong> emigration effects. In urban areas, it is immigration that tends to reduce the average education level<br />
(11.67 – 11.76 = –0.09). In rural areas, this effect is the result of emigration (6.98 – 7.25 = –0.27) because<br />
immigration from cities tends to raise the education level in the countryside (7.10 – 6.98 = 0.12).<br />
Table VIII.6<br />
PANAMA: ESTIMATED IMPACT OF RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION ON THE AVERAGE EDUCATION<br />
LEVEL OF THE POPULATION AGED 30 TO 49 IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS, 2005-2010<br />
Habitual residence<br />
Residence 5 years earlier<br />
Urban Rural Total<br />
Migration impact<br />
(absolute)<br />
Migration impact<br />
(percentage)<br />
Urban 11.76 9.83 11.67 -0.05204 -0.445837<br />
Rural 10.00 6.98 7.10 -0.14456 -2.034652<br />
Total 11.72 7.25 10.28<br />
Source: Latin American <strong>and</strong> Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE) - <strong>Population</strong> Division of ECLAC, on the<br />
basis of special processing of 2010 census microdata.