Redistribución espacial y migración interna de la población en Chile en los últimos 35 años (1965-2002): una síntesis de las hipótesis y la evidencia / Spatial Redistribution and Internal Migration of the Populationin Chile Over the Past 35 Years (1965-20

Abstract

In the analysis of the trends in the population’s spatial distribution and migratory flo w s, three issues contrast w ith the evidence yielded by the microdata processing of the last three housing and population censuses in Chile (1982, 1992 and 2002). The first concerns the concentration of the Chilean population in the Metropolitan Area of Greater Santi­ago (MAGS), and the political and administrative region in w hich it is located (Metro­politan Region or RM). T w o competing hypothesis are compared w ith the data, one suggesting the prevalence of the migratory attraction of MAGS and RM, as a result of their capacity to continue leading economic dynamism and the other proposing a change of orientation of the flo w s, after w hich MAGS and RM w ould end up w ith a negative balance because of the loss they w ould experience in the exchange w ith more dynamic regions, w hich w ould be better positioned w ithin globalized production. The data suggest that during the second half of the 1990s, the Metropolitan Region and MAGS began to act as areas of net emigration, but that paradoxically, this failed to revert the increase in the concentration of the national population in them, due to the combined effect of over-average natural gro w th and the high absorption of international immigrants. The second issue refers to the processes of regional convergence and the role of migration in them, about which there are several hypotheses, concerning both the existence of this process in various socio-economic dimensions and the effect of internal migration flo w s in it. The impact of migration on the regional educational attainment levels is evalu­ated using novel procedures that operate w ith census microdata-and w hich are submitted for discussion. The results indicate that during the past t w o census periods, migration between regions has favored -albeit only slightly- the convergence of regional educational attainment. Finally, the third issue is relative to urban segregation, a propos of which the author discusses the hypothesis of a reduction of its levels and a remodeling of its forms as a result of the displacement of certain high-income families to peripheral, poor communes in MAGS. The evidence produced and analyzed indicates that intra-metro­politan migration plays a dual role, since w hile it reduces the scale of segregation, it continues to be a force that tends to increase the socio-economic gaps bet w een communes. The authors conclude by saying that in order to promote migratory flo w s in keeping w ith the regional development strategy, and prevent the consolidation of areas of entrenched poverty in the cities, w here it invariably tends to be reproduced, territorial policies are required, to reinforce tendencies derived from the actions of markets and to offset the trends derived from the unrestricted effects of supply and demand.