Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
which 8,000 families were to be resettled the first year with
increasing numbers to follow each year thereafter. However, he
postponed this program as a part of his austerity measures.
When Balaguer returned to the presidency in 1986, he
resumed a practice that he had engaged in while president in
the 1970s. Namely, he devoted several weekends a year to visiting
poor, rural areas and handing out land titles and distributing
government-subsidized food to poor families—all with
considerable publicity. Although little land was distributed (the
records are incomplete), this practice, one also used as a campaign
device, contributed to Balaguer's retaining the rural
vote. Balaguer continued this activity in the 1990s while he was
president and while he was campaigning for reelection in 1990
and 1994.
Population growth over the past century has almost eliminated
the land reserves. Parents usually give children plots of
land as they reach maturity so that they can marry and begin
their own families. Over the generations, the process has led to
extreme land fragmentation. Contemporary practices have
sought to counteract such fragmentation by educating children,
setting them up in business, or bankrolling their emigration.
Such steps limit the number of heirs competing for the
family holdings and assure that the next generation will be able
to maintain its standard of living. One or two siblings (usually
the oldest and the youngest) remain with the parents and
inherit the farm. In other situations, siblings and their spouses
stay on the parental lands; each couple farms its own plot of
land, but they pool their labor for many agricultural and
domestic tasks.
Emigration serves as a safety valve (see Migration, this ch.).
Emigrants' remittances represent an essential component in
many household budgets. These timely infusions of cash permit
medium-sized landholders to meet expenses during the
months before harvest; they also allow families to purchase
more land. In communities with a history of fifteen to twenty
years of high levels of emigration, the infusion of cash has had
an inflationary impact on the local land market. For those relying
on wage labor (daily or periodic cash payment) to earn a
living, the impact is more ambiguous. In some communities,
the increase in emigration means more casual work is available
as more family members emigrate. In other instances, emigrants'
families have switched to livestock raising to limit labor
requirements or have hired an overseer to handle the agricul-
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