Argentina has not grown economically consistently for more than 10 years. There are 18 million poor and 7% unemployed. Despite the outlook, hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive every year to start their new life here. Taking into account the Argentine situation, and in comparison with other countries, with more stable economies, such as Uruguay in the region, or other countries in Europe: why choose Argentina?
In this article different researchers investigate the multiple reasons that lead migrants to choose Argentina. The reasons are the most varied, as well as unexpected: even the weather is taken into account!
In Argentina there are more than 3 million migrants, while approximately one million Argentines are abroad: more people arrive in Argentina than leave.
“The number of people born abroad with ID, and residence in Argentina, in 2022, is 3,033,786,” reads a report from the National Population Directorate. It is worth noting, therefore, that the values may have varied, and that the number of migrants counts those who have ID and residence, so that those migrants without documents may be many more.
Most foreigners in the country come from other parts of Latin America. More than half comes from Paraguay and Bolivia. After Peru (9.54%), Venezuela (7.27%), Chile (6.98%), Uruguay (4.23%) and Colombia (3.69%).
According to official data, in 2021, 849,717 residences were granted. While in Uruguay, where poverty is 10% (according to the Continuous Household Survey), the percentage of migrants represents 3.1%; in Argentina, where poverty reaches 43% (according to UCA data), foreigners comprise 6.5% of the population.
Dr. Mariana García, from the Migration Studies Group of the National University of Rosario, introduces: “Migration is a human and ancestral impulse. We are all migrants, our ancestors were and our descendants will be. Argentina is, since before its formation as a nation, a country of migration. The original peoples traveled through this territory before its political limits existed. The arrival of Europeans and enslaved Africans form the migration history of this country, added to the migratory wave of the late 19th and 20th centuries”.
A good place? “In general terms, Argentina is a good place to migrate. It is not at war, it does not have an authoritarian government regime, it participates in the international conventions of respect for human rights and is part of a cultural tradition that gradually incorporated rights: of women, of minorities, and of migrants.” , affirms María Dolores Linares, PhD in Social Sciences, in Geography, teacher, and researcher at CONICET.
“If we take the map and cross out the countries that are at war or those with extreme levels of violence, the countries that remain are not that many,” he explains. “Without going to these extremes – he continues – Argentina is, within Latin America, one of the countries that attract migrants. It offers a space for interaction and possibilities of global cities: cultural diversity, social opportunities and technological resources”. In any case, he clarifies: “Argentina is not among the nations with the highest proportion of foreign population. Not in the world, not in Latin America.
Conicet researcher Brenda Matossian, also a doctor in Geography, agrees that the number of migrants in Argentina is not especially large: “We still do not have the specific data from the 2022 Census, but regarding the data from the last 3 censuses, the percentage of foreign population out of the total has remained between 4.2% and 5%”.
“According to the 1914 census, the foreign population reached 30%; for that year almost a third of the population had not been born in Argentina. If we compare the current percentages of Argentina with those of other countries that have traditionally received migrants, this is limited. Canada has 21% of its population foreigners, Australia 30%. In Spain it is 14%, and it rises to 8.6% in the case of Chile, which has recently increased”, indicates Matossian.
“Argentina continues to be a good possibility within the region, as a country that offers a society with a migratory tradition and consolidated networks for communities already settled decades ago. The motivations in the migratory decision are not only economic ”, she points out.
Integration. What, then, are the other motivations? Is integration, “Argentine hospitality” a point to consider? “I am close to my house, with almost no time difference. Culturally we are very similar. I like the cultural offer, the community lifestyle and the quality of the services. Argentines are hospitable and open, ”says Maximiliano Stuardo, a Chilean, who is just beginning his life in Buenos Aires.
“The concept of integration is highly debated in migration studies; It would be necessary to define what is meant by integration. If we ask ourselves about the relationships that migrants have with each other, and with society in general, (…) there are groups that have more possibilities of inclusion than others, due to their mother tongue, educational and professional training, associations”, analyzes Linares.
Regarding integration, the researchers emphasized the need to evaluate community by community, without being able to give an answer that encompasses all migrants.
Procedures. Are immigration procedures easy? “It’s not that they’re easy. Migrants must go through procedures, meet requirements, and enter the country legally. For non-regional applicants, regularization can be more complicated, but those from Mercosur, once they get around the shifts and wait, can access a temporary residence, which they must renew until they access a permanent one,” answers Dr. Linares, who points out relatives as an important factor for migrants.
Dr. García continues to explore the reasons: “It is a country with large territorial extensions, a good climate. (…) The constitutional spirit proposes migration. The Migration Law (25,871), which guarantees the right to migrate, is considered a model in the world”. Linares highlights: “Anyone has the right to access basic education, public health care and Justice, regardless of their immigration status. This means that if a person has not yet been able to regularize the situation of a son or daughter, they can still go to school and be cared for in public hospitals.”
Health and education. Here another issue arises: are health and public education, free, and free, the ones that drive migration to Argentina? “Access to school and health are rights that, although often weak, we could say that they are conquered, and that migrants value,” responds political scientist Florencia Bottazzi, from the “No Without Women” Network of Political Scientists. and Master in Human Rights.
“In my research experience, migrants have never expressed that they decided to come to the country for the possibility of obtaining a social pension or access to public health. They do highlight the possibilities of developing professionally, getting a better job placement than in their country of origin, and the possibilities of regularizing their documentary situation”, says Linares.
He gives an example: “There are nationalities, like the Colombian, that at some point have decided to come to study a university degree. The cost-quality calculation was convenient for them”. Something similar occurs with Ecuadorians and Brazilians in Medicine careers: one out of every two entrants to the career at the National University of La Plata is a foreigner.
The plans. So social aid does not influence? Linares answers: “Migrants are usually excluded from assistance policies. Many times, the policy requirements include X number of years in the country. For access to the IFE, while 30% of the requests from Argentines were rejected, for foreigners the rejection was more than 70%”.
“The Bolivians -he continues- had a 50% rejection, the Chileans 70% and the Venezuelans 100%. That means that none of the Venezuelans received help, when they were, paradoxically, the ones that sustained, to some extent, life in the cities, with food delivery services, for example.”
“If we take into account the Universal Child Allowance, we can see that only 8% of the beneficiaries were born abroad. According to the 2020 National Migrant Survey, only 33% of migrants had received social assistance,” Linares concludes. It is worth commenting: that 33% is equivalent to almost a million people.
The crisis. Stuardo, in his first months in Argentina, highlights another reason not yet named; currency exchange and digital nomads: “I have a remote job in my country. In Argentina, life costs me practically half. Not counting the clothes and technology that continues to be more expensive here.”
In the context of crisis, is the reception of migrants a challenge for the country? “Argentina has low population growth, which is why it requires migration as a replacement population”, responds Dr. Mariana García. Brenda Matossian affirms: “Migrations contribute to the country, especially because migrants are mostly of active age and energize numerous productive sectors.”
Linares agrees: “You have to take into account that 75% of the migrant population is economically active: people who come to work, provide human resources and pay taxes. The world‘s most dynamic economies have much higher proportions of migrants than ours. European countries, which have between 5% and 15% of the foreign population, the United States 40%, the United Arab Emirates 78%”.
“Economic crises discourage international migration, flows have decreased since 2019. Argentina, especially in the last 25 years, has been both a recipient and a source of migrants. What is interesting about the migration issue in the last 10 years is not so much the quantity, because in fact it is not that significant, but the diversity. It is no longer just about migrations from the global south to the ‘rich’ north, but there are also ‘lifestyle’ migrations from the north to the south, looking for projects that connect with nature and good living, and a growing South-South mobility”, reveals the expert.
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