Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
growth rates on the subregional and provincial levels reflect
these trends. Puerto Plata grew at more than twice the rate of
the nation as a whole in the 1970s. This trend continued in the
1980s and early 1990s as a result of the rapidly developing and
expanding tourist industry along the north coast. The southeast,
especially the National District, has expanded much faster
than most of the country, as has La Romana, both largely on
account of the increased number of industrial free zones.
Migration
The Dominican Republic is a country of migrants. Surveys in
the mid-1970s found that nearly two-thirds of city dwellers and
half of those in the countryside had migrated at least once.
According to the 1981 census, nearly one-quarter of the population
was living in a province other than that in which they
were born. A decade later, according to the 1993 census, the
figure had increased to one-third of the population. Rural
areas in general, especially in the Central Cibao, have experienced
significant levels of out-migration. The movement of
peasants and the landless into the republic's growing cities has
accounted for the lion's share of migration, however. Indeed,
Dominicans have even coined a word, campuno, to describe the
rural-urban campesino migrant. In the 1970s, the industrial
free zones, particularly in La Romana and San Pedro de
Macons, attracted many migrants in search of employment.
According to the 1981 census, the principal destinations for
migrants were the National District followed by the provinces
of La Romana, Independencia, and San Pedro de Macons (see
fig.
2). In the National District, 46 percent of the inhabitants
were migrants. The main destination for migrants in the 1980s,
according to the 1993 Dominican census, continued to be the
National District but was followed this time by the provinces of
Valverde and San Cristobal and then La Romana and San
Pedro de Macoris. This census indicated the increasing urbanization
of the country as well as the apparent continuing magnet
effect of the industrial zones, which in 1997 numbered
thirty-five and employed 182,000 Dominicans.
In the 1990s, women predominated in both rural-urban and
urban-rural migration (55 to 60 percent of the workers in the
industrial free zones were women, representing what two
Dominican analysts call the "feminization" of labor, especially
in Santo Domingo). Men, however, are more likely than
women to move from city to city or from one rural area to
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