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Uruguay Migration
Rural depopulation has been a striking trend in Uruguay
during the twentieth century. According to the 1975
census, onefifth of those citizens born in the eighteen interior,
littoral,
and coastal departments lived in Montevideo. The
departments that
produced the highest flow of outward migration between the
1963
and 1975 censuses were in the interior of the country. In
the
littoral and coastal departments (except the department of
Rocha), the greater net retention of population correlated
with
the growth of the local urban population. This showed that
people
tended to stay in the department where they were born if
there
were local towns to which they could move. Otherwise, they
moved
farther afield.
Migration in Uruguay thus appeared to follow the
classic
pattern by which those born in isolated rural areas moved
to the
nearest towns, whereas those born in interior towns headed
for
Montevideo. Montevideans, in turn, sought to migrate to
large
cities in Latin America, notably Buenos Aires, where their
accents and customs blended successfully and where wages
were
much higher on average.
Data as of December 1990
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