Bolivian Transnational Labor Migration to Argentina

PIZARRO, CYNTHIA ALEJANDRA

Moscú

Simposio; International Symposium Migratory Bridges in Eurasia; 2012

Institute of Social-Political Researches. Russian Academy of Sciences

Bolivian migration to Argentina dates from the mid-19th Century, when these Republics became independent. According to the characteristics of the flows arrived in the last 20 years, it can be considered a transnational labor migration. Within the context of the progressive flexibility of production and the precarization of work, labor immigrants are defined as the ?more appropriate? ones for certain jobs. This naturalization is generally based in ethnic-racial criteria that justify their assignation to the most subordinated positions in labor hierarchies. Thus, secondary or enclave markets emerge as cheap force of labor is available favored by   ethnic-migratory networks. Certain labor branches characterized by informality, low wages and the need of scarce qualification such as construction, agriculture, informal trade, apparel manufacturing and domestic / care services, among others, are segmented labor niches destined to recent immigrants. The argument of this paper is that recent migration from Bolivia to Argentina has developed certain features of nowadays transnational labor migrations. We will focus our analysis in: the diversification of destines; the concentration in the metropolitan areas; the strengthening of migratory social networks; the progressive feminization of the flow; the insertion in labor niches destined for recent migrants such as agriculture, apparel manufacturing, informal trade, domestic and care services; and, the bad working conditions.