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Uruguay Emigration
Since the 1950s, Uruguay's traditional pattern of net
immigration has given way to a severe pattern of
emigration,
which has been of concern to the authorities. This was
particularly worrisome because those most likely to leave
were
the youngest and best-educated citizens. The emigration of
youth
and the country's aging population had created a very high
dependency ratio and serious difficulties for Uruguay's
social
security system. A famous piece of black-humored graffiti
in the
port of Montevideo in the early 1970s read: "Last one to
leave,
please turn off the lights!" Estimates of emigration as
high as
one-third of the population have, however, been wildly
exaggerated.
Economics motivated emigration in the 1960s, but
political
repression became a major factor during the 1973-85
military
regime. Official figures suggest that 180,000 people left
Uruguay
from 1963 to 1975. In 1973 about 30,000 left, in 1974
nearly
60,000, and in 1975 nearly 40,000. According to the
General
Directorate of Statistics and Census, 150,000 Uruguayans
left the
country between 1975 and 1985. By 1989 only 16,500 of them
had
returned. If the 180,000 who left between 1963 and 1975
are
added, the proportion of the population that emigrated
from 1963
to 1985 can be estimated at about one-tenth. Along with
the low
birth rate, this is the major explanation for the
country's low
population growth rate.
Most of the emigrants were young. Of those who
emigrated
between 1963 and 1975, 17.7 percent were aged fourteen or
younger, 68 percent were between the ages of fifteen and
thirtynine , and only 14.3 percent were forty years or older.
Those
leaving were on average also better educated than the
total
population. Only 1.5 percent were uneducated, 52.1 percent
had
completed primary school, 33.6 percent had attended
secondary
school or teachers' training colleges, and 12.8 percent
had
attended university or technical college.
In the late 1980s, the lack of jobs for young people
was
again a fundamental factor contributing to emigration.
Those
people leaving Uruguay were not only younger and better
educated
than the population as a whole but also tended to have
more job
skills. Among those aged fourteen and older who emigrated
from
1963 to 1975 and who were economically active, the
relative
proportions of different occupations were as follows:
professionals, technicians, managers, and administrators
made up
12.8 percent, 2.9 percentage points higher than in the
economically active population (EAP) as a whole in 1975;
office
employees constituted 16 percent of those emigrating, 4.3
points
above their share of the EAP; salespeople made up 12.4
percent of
emigrants, 2 points above the EAP; and drivers, skilled
and
unskilled workers, and day laborers constituted 34.2
percent of
the EAP in 1975, but 47.6 percent of those emigrating.
On the one hand, the proportion of emigrants who had
worked
as domestic servants was 10.4 percent, close to their
share of
the EAP. On the other hand, whereas 18.2 percent of the
EAP was
classified as farmers and fishermen in 1975, these made up
only
0.8 percent of those leaving the country in the previous
twelve
years.
By far the most popular destination for Uruguayan
emigrants
was Argentina, which in the first half of the 1970s took
over
one-half of the emigrants. Also important were the United
States
and Australia, followed by Spain, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Small
numbers of artists, intellectuals, and politicians
experiencing
persecution emigrated to Western Europe, notably to the
Netherlands and Spain. Many of these political exiles,
however,
chose to return to Uruguay after 1984.
The Uruguayan community in Argentina was officially
given as
58,000 in 1970 but was actually much larger. Many
Uruguayans in
Argentina returned to Montevideo at election time to vote.
Political exiles were allowed to return to Uruguay after
1984,
but many of them found it difficult to make a living. This
was
even true in those cases where they had the right to
return to
former government posts, for example in education. Often
they
expressed shock at the decay of public services and the
dilapidated state of buildings compared with their
memories of
Montevideo.
Data as of December 1990
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