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NICARAGUA: It’s Always Greener on the Other Side of the Border

José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Oct 2 2006 (IPS) - Some 20 percent of the Nicaraguan population have left the country over the last 16 years, most in search of work and better pay. The youth are the ones who are leaving, in a trend that separates families in exchange for remittances..

“I was an English teacher in an elementary school in Rivas (a province along the southern border), but they paid me only 130 dollars per month. My friends who went to Costa Rica were earning more than 400 dollars, so I decided to go in search of better money, because I don’t see a future for myself in this country,” Juan Carlos Baltodano, 28, told IPS before crossing Nicaragua’s southern border at Peñas Blancas.

If they had the chance, more than 60 percent of Nicaraguan youths under the age of 25 would emigrate, according to studies conducted by the Network of Nicaraguan Migrants and other institutions that study the migration phenomenon.

According to official statistics, approximately one million Nicaraguans live abroad, having emigrated for economic reasons, mainly in the last 16 years. Martha Cranshaw, a representative with the Network of Nicaraguan Migrants, estimates that there are between 900,000 and one million emigrants: some 600,000 in Costa Rica, 350,000 in the United States and about 100,000 in El Salvador.

M&R Consultores published a survey on Aug. 21 in which six of every 10 youths interviewed said they were thinking about leaving the country. The same survey determined the trend had remained strong since May of 2004, when an earlier survey by the same polling company reported that seven of every 10 respondents wished to emigrate.

The reasons haven’t changed either: 80 percent would go in search of work and better pay.

“People can’t find work in the country and see others getting opportunities abroad and sending remittances to the rest of the family,” Raúl Obregón, director of M&R, told IPS.

Eighty percent of Nicaragua’s five million inhabitants are considered poor, as they survive on less than two dollars a day, according to data from the Civil Coordinator, a non-governmental organisation.

In another poll carried out in August, the Fundación Desafíos, an NGO that deals with youth and adolescent issues, found that almost three quarters of respondents under 25 in rural areas said they wanted to leave the country because there was no work in their area.

The Foundation’s survey, which polled 1,725 respondents in rural areas, revealed that 70 percent would pick up stakes for a steady job of any kind.

Eighty-two percent of respondents said they had never received any economic support for personal projects, and only 12 percent had received scholarships.

These statistics are at odds with government figures. In August, the president of Nicaragua’s Central Bank, Mario Arana, announced that over the five years of President Enrique Bolaños’ term, unemployment rates had been reduced to 5.6 percent.

But independent economist Néstor Avendaño said this unemployment figure does not reflect reality.

According to his calculations, the unemployed and under-employed (working in the informal sector and without steady wages) account for at least 25 percent of the economically active population, estimated at 2.2 million people over the age of 12, according to last year’s census conducted by the Nicaraguan Institute of Statistics and Census.

Meanwhile, the flow of money sent home to their families by those working abroad is steadily increasing.

Avendaño told IPS that the total family remittances increased from 800 million dollars in 2004 to a little more than one billion dollars in 2005, representing 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Cranshaw said most of this income comes from Nicaraguans working in Costa Rica, the United States and El Salvador.

“If you consider that the population of Nicaragua is 5.1 million, and that a million live abroad, it means that this country is becoming an exporter of its own people. We have almost 20 percent of our population living abroad because the economic conditions are unacceptable here,” said sociologist Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, a consultant to international organisms on poverty and population issues.

Gutiérrez told IPS that this diaspora does not represent economic losses, but rather immediate help.

But “it has other negative effects,” said Cranshaw, author of a study that reported that more than 400,000 Nicaraguan children and teenagers grow up with one or two of their parents absent, as they leave home to find work in other countries.

The report: “What has migration meant to me and my family?” released this month, indicates that 77 percent of children whose parents have emigrated are sad from the moment the parent decides to leave until they return, which has repercussions on education and social behaviour.

“We talk about the fact that our young people are leaving the country and children are growing up with psychological problems because they lack one or two members of their family. That is, we are affecting the population in several ways by failing to find solutions to economic needs,” not to mention the risk that youth may fall prey to human trafficking rings, Cranshaw told IPS.

This year alone, the Foreign Ministry has received reports of more than 25 women who left to find work, but were kidnapped and forced into prostitution in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Furthermore Gutiérrez recognised that there is a loss of “young, and therefore productive, labour.”

“The biggest group of emigrants range between the ages of 24 and 26. The emigration of young labour power has a negative effect on Nicaragua, because sometimes it is the community’s most skilled members who are leaving. Even if they have only completed grade six, they could still be the most educated in the family,” he said.

“So there’s a human capital drain, and we will not be able to consolidate development plans because the most active work force has fled,” said the sociologist.

While benefits and drawbacks are being debated, Cranshaw wanted to make sure an important development fact did not get lost in the shuffle. “One billion dollars in remittances come in from abroad. Without this money, the poverty situation in this country would be even worse.”