Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
country's rural population has been estimated at 2.7 million in
1950, 3.4 million in 1971, 3.8 million in 1982, and 4.5 million
in 1998.
Between 1980 and the late 1990s, annual growth rates of
metropolitan Port-au-Prince averaged 4.4 percent—more than
double the estimates of national growth and three times the
average rate of rural growth (1.2 percent). Census-based projections
indicate that some 66 percent of the country's urban
population is concentrated in the metropolitan area of Port-au-
Prince. In 1998 the city and its environs were estimated to have
2 million inhabitants. In 1995 the city of Cap-Haitien had an
estimated population of 108,294, Saint-Marc 75,507, Gonaives
72,109, and Les Cayes 54,252. These projections are likely
underestimated because they rely on 1982 data and exclude
new urban agglomerations around the old city centers.
Migration
The rate of population growth in Haiti's rural areas is less
than one-third that of urban areas despite a much higher rural
fertility rate. The main reason for this disparity is out-migration.
Some 29 percent of rural households reported out-migration
of one or more household members in a recent
comprehensive survey of rural Haitians. The most common
destinations are urban areas or other countries.
In the 1990s, the Haitian diaspora is estimated to number
around 1.5 million people residing primarily in the United
States, the Dominican Republic, and Canada. Census surveys of
the 1980s identified the United States as the primary destination
between 1950 and 1985, with the United States receiving
68 percent of Haitian emigrants during this period. There were
also significant levels of emigration to the Dominican Republic,
Canada, the Bahamas, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French
Guiana, and France.
Haitian emigrants in the 1950s and 1960s were commonly
urban middle- and upper-class opponents of the Francois Duvalier
government (see Francois Duvalier, 1957-71, ch.6). In the
1970s, the profile of emigrants to the United States shifted to
include growing numbers of lower-class Haitians from both
rural and urban areas. By the mid-1980s, there were sizable
numbers of Haitians in New York, Miami, Boston, Chicago, and
Philadelphia, including an estimated 20 percent with illegal
immigration status. Census data from 1990 indicate that
although small numbers of Haitians live in widely dispersed
326