Life-Time and Recent Migration to Bolívar State, Venezuela, 1990: The Effect of the Guayana Program

Abstract

In 1959, the Venezuelan government erected a new industrial city, Ciudad Guayana, in the Southeastern State of Bolívar. The purpose of the city was to divert potential migrants from the already overcrowded Caracas Metropolitan Region. Using regression Analysis, this paper examines recent migration flows (1981-1990) to each of the ten municipios in the State of Bolívar to determine if the aggregate characteristics pertaining to the migrant's origin state were significantly different for migrants who selected Caroní municipio (the location of Ciudad Guayana) and the other nine municipios in Bolívar. Results indicated that distance was the most important variable for recent immigrants to Caroní as well as for the other three municipios which together form the northern frontier of Bolívar State. The most important predictor variable for the remaining municipios was total population of the origin state. Although Caroní was more successful in attracting recent migrants than any of the other municipios, the characteristics pertaining to the origin states of these migrants do not differ significantly from other municipios, suggesting that the growth pole was not successful in drawing migrants from the capital region as originally intended.