Socioeconomic Well-Being and Migration: A Case Study of Three Zones in Bogotá, Colombia

Maria Aysa, University of Pennsylvania

This study analyzes changes in socioeconomic well-being associated with internal, forced and intra-urban migrations. Most people migrate as a strategy to improve their lives and the lives of their family members. However, those persons who are forced to leave their places of origin, due to threats on their life, physical integrity or freedom, face worse conditions at destination. Therefore, decreases in socioeconomic well-being of those who were forced to migrate should be larger than the increases in socioeconomic well-being of internal and intra-urban migrants. This study focuses on the contemporary Colombian case, and particularly in the city of Bogotá. It focuses on Colombia because it is ranked the third country with the largest number of forced migrants worldwide. Additionally, Bogotá has received about 18.3 percent of the total displaced population. Given the characteristics of the Colombian internal turmoil and the patterns of forced migration in the last years, popular neighborhoods of destination in the city of Bogotá are appropriate sites to study the effects of forced migration. The data used in this analysis come from the Colombian Survey of Forced Migration in 2002. This survey collected retrospective labor and migration histories of household heads and their spouses, and observations of economic well-being in the current residence, in the residence they lived longest and the residence from where they were forced to migrate. The indicators of economic well-being included in this analysis are: living conditions, household amenities and utilities, availability of education and health care centers, years of education, occupation, land and home ownership. The data were collected in three zones: one in the northern part of Bogotá, the second in the southern sector of the city and the third one in a municipality within the metropolitan area. The random samples contain about 600 household interviews and they were designed to represent the urban zones selected for the study. Given the sample design and the differences in degrees of urban consolidation across the zones, the analysis employs multi-level techniques to adjust for changes in variations at different levels of aggregation such as neighborhood and household. This analysis estimates the impact of the type of migration –internal, forced or intra-urban- on changes in indicators of socioeconomic well-being. Increases in socioeconomic well-being of those who migrate from other neighborhoods within the city or from other areas in the country will be contrasted with the decreases in economic well-being of those who were forced to leave their places of origin. This analysis could lead to public policy recommendations directed to provide timely and efficient assistance to those who have been forced to leave their places of origin.