CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In the analysis of international movements of people, Argentina is a relevant case not only because international migration has been a central component of Argentine nation-building and development, but also because the country turned from being a net recipient of migratory flows from the late 19th Century until the mid-1950s to becoming a net expeller -especially of skilled workers- in the last quarter of the 20th Century. This paper aims to study, with a long-term perspective, the factors associated to immigrant flows to Argentina from Europe (Spain and Italy) and South America, focusing on economic, labor market and political determinants of these flows. Taking into account these economic and non-economic factors, a set of different econometric models are performed and estimates are made for both the first wave of migration during the period from 1870 to 1950 and the second wave during the period from 1945 to 1976. This paper is the first attent to study the differences in the factors associated to European and Latin American migration flows to Argentina. An important result of comparing the estimates for the first and second migratory waves indicate a shift in the order of importance of the determinants of the entry rate, where the income gap, more than opportunities of employment differentials, appears to be the variable that generates the greatest reaction in the regional inmigratory flows. On the contrary, European flows seem to have been triggered by the second factor. However, beyond certain socio-economic junctures that favor or constrain immigration to Argentina, wage disparities with respect to other South American countries have created structural conditions that explain the persistence of migrant flows coming from countries in the region even during recessions such as that experienced by Argentina in the mid-1990s.

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