International Migration Data: Their Problems and Usefulness in Venezuela

Abstract

During the 1940s and 1950s Venezuela was an important destination for migrants from Southern Europe, a flow that disappeared almost entirely during the 1960s, to be replaced by border movements and the largely illegal migration of Colombians. The oil boom of the 1970s saw an increase of the latter, which may have subsided during the 1980s due to the more difficult economic conditions that have also led to significant emigration levels of Venezuelans and former immigrants. Methods of data collection systems that provide information on migrants include the National Population and Housing Census, the National Household Survey, migration surveys, arrival and departure statistics, registration systems operated by the Direccion General Sectorial de identificacion y Control de Extranjeros, the 1980 regularization drive, statistics gathered by the Ministry of Labor, and vital and civil registration statistics. The lack of effective coordination among the different government agencies gathering information and the administrative nature of the data collected give rise to problems of comparability. Mechanisms to publish and disseminate the data available are not well developed, so that researchers often have no access to potentially useful sources of information. Problems of timeliness in the publication of the most widely used information are also present, as is the large gap existing in data pertaining to emigration, be it of Venezuelan nationals or of immigrants leaving the country.