Bulmer-Thomas V., Coatsworth J., Cortes-Conde R. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 2, The Long Twentieth Century
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422 Blanca S
´
anchez-Alonso
The data cast some doubt on the overall contribution of immigration to
raising the working-age population in the countries of destination. It might
be the case that, even if the majority of the population were contributing to
the labor force, they were simultaneously raising the number of children.
If a large number of families arrived with children, they already had higher
dependency rates than individuals arriving on their own. For receiving
societies, the costs associated with family immigration were higher in terms
of health, education, and public services.
Permanent immigrants, either with or without family at arrival, also
contributed to a rise in the birth rate because of their age structure. Did
countries of immigration have higher birth rates because of the arrival of
this younger population? Or did immigrants contribute to an early start
of the demographic transition by lowering birth rates? Data for the first
quarter of the nineteenth century suggest that the latter was the case for
some countries. Birth rates were lower in Uruguay and Argentina than
elsewhere in Latin America in 1900–24 and the decreasing trend is clear
from 1900 onward. Cuba had also relatively low birth rates in the 1920s but
not before, whereas Brazil shows the opposite trend – lower birth rates at
the beginning of the century and higher rates in the early 1920s. Actually,
Brazil had one of the highest birth rates in Latin America in 1930.
However, we simply do not know if it was immigration or other forces at
work that explain the relatively low birth rates in the River Plate. The major-
ity ofarrivals were from high birth-rate areas in Europe (southern countries).
Urbanization, education, and economic growth could also have contributed
to the decline in birth rates in the River Plate areas as immigrants were influ-
enced by the new environment. In 1895, the average number of children
per woman in Argentina was 8.4 for natives and 6.1 for foreigners, but the
main differences were between rural and urban women according to their
literacy levels. In 1947, the figures were 3.6 children per native woman com-
pared with 3.2 for foreign females. Populations that experience a rapid rate
of increase in per capita income generally have lower mortality and lower
fertility than those where per capita income grew more slowly. S
´
anchez-
Albornoz argues that the overall high birth rates in Latin America were
related to the large share of the rural population. Only the most developed
and open countries had started the first phase of the demographic transition
by the first quarter of the twentieth century.
With some qualifications about family immigration, immigrants con-
tributed decisively to the growth of the labor force because of their con-
centration in the working-age group. It seems clear that Argentina and
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Labor and Immigration 423
Uruguay, like other countries in the New World, had a demographic advan-
tage attributable to immigration because the economically active were grow-
ing faster than the dependent population in the years 1870 through 1913.
However, it has been argued that this positive contribution was offset in the
long run because of rapid population growth. Through time, immigrants,
particularly if they have high fertility rates, also contribute to the growth
of the dependent young.
This is the argument used by Taylor to explain Argentine economic
retardation relative to Australia in the age of mass migration. High rates of
immigration and more fecund immigrants in Argentina than in Australia
contributed definitively to increase the dependent population group and
therefore depressed savings, inhibited capital deepening, and retarded eco-
nomic growth. Foreign capital imports maintained the level of output per
worker in the belle
´
epoque before World War I. In the interwar period,
when foreign capital did not arrive as before, Argentina suffered from her
low domestic savings capacity because of high dependency rates driven
by a fast-growing population swelled by massive immigration. Argentine
dependency rates, calculated as the ratio of dependent population (0–15
age group plus those older than 64)toactive population, were higher in
1914 than dependency rates in Canada, Australia, and the United States. In
the 1940s, however, Argentine rates were similar to those found in Canada
but still higher than Australian and U.S. dependency rates.
We do not have any research similar to Taylor’s for other Latin Amer-
ican countries. It might be illuminating to compare dependency rates
within Latin America in the long run. Table 10.5 presents dependency
rates in Latin America both for massive immigration countries and for low
immigration countries like Mexico and Chile. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, Cuba had the lowest dependency rates of the countries considered.
Argentina and Chile, with very different immigration rates, had similar
dependency rates, whereas Mexico and Uruguay had the highest. In the first
decade of the twentieth century (although census dates are not the same),
Argentina had the lowest dependency rate. This can clearly be attributed
to the increase in the young-adult population group attributable to immi-
gration. Brazilian immigration policy, which favored family arrivals, could
have contributed to the rise in the dependency rate. But in Cuba, where
immigration from Europe was predominantly male immigration with no
children, native population growth and perhaps the influx of Caribbean
immigrants increased the dependency rate notably. The Argentine trend to
decreasing the dependency rate is clear in 1947.Eveninthe1940s, when the
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424 Blanca S
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Table 10.5. Dependency rates: Latin America and other New World
countries (1872–1947)
Countries
Argentina 1869 1895 1914 1947
0.839 0.734 0.688 0.533
Brazil 1872 1890 1900 1920 1940
0.719 0.755 0.907 0.880 0.815
Cuba 1889 1907 1919 1943
0.643
∗
0.698
∗
0.891
∗
0.660
Uruguay 1900 1908
0.854
∗
0.777
Mexico 1895 1900 1910 1930 1940
0.813
∗
0.805
∗
0.801 0.802
∗
0.796
Chile 1895 1907 1920 1930
0.772 0.784
∗
0.702 0.685
Canada 1871 1891 1911 1921 1931 1941
0.883 0.692 0.600 0.645 0.598 0.526
Australia 1861 1891 1901 1911 1921 1933 1947
0.610 0.666 0.643 0.520 0.567 0.500 0.496
U.S. 1870 1880 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940
0.754 0.686 0.632 0.547 0.573 0.533 0.488
Notes:
∗
Age group (15–60).
The dependency rate is the ratio of dependent population (0–15) + (over 64)toactive
population (15–64).
Source: Calculated from Brian R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics. The Americas
1750–1988 (Basingtoke, 1993).
demographic transition was on its way in more Latin American countries
that in the preceding period, Argentina clearly had the lowest dependency
rates of all. The idea of a demographic burden in Argentina depends entirely
on the basis of the comparison.
5.CONCLUSIONS
The global economy evolved slowly through the nineteenth century. Immi-
gration flows reached their highest levels in the early decades of the twen-
tieth century. Latin American countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba,
and Brazil participated actively in the international labor market. Other
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Labor and Immigration 425
countries in the region, however, remained poorly integrated with the rest
of the world in terms of labor flows.
Much has been written on the international mass migration of Europeans
and some efforts have been made to balance the overwhelming United
States coverage that has traditionally dominated migration studies. Still, the
experience of the Latin American countries is not fully incorporated into
current debates on historical migration, in spite of the fact that 13 million
Europeans migrated to the region between 1870 and 1930.Even the Latin
American country most favored by researchers, Argentina, still lags behind
the research done on the United States, Australia, and Canada.
Latin America was a latecomer to the age of free mass migration. In the
1880s, when mass European immigration started in Latin America, it was
clear that the region could not compete with the United States. Although
mass migration started in the last decades of the nineteenth century, it
was only truly massive in the early years of the twentieth century prior to
World War I. The phenomenon of massive arrivals was short-lived for
Latin American countries because the international labor market changed
dramatically after World War I.
European immigration to Latin America from the 1880s onward presents
a pattern similar to those of other destination countries. The same economic
and demographic forces were at work in sending and receiving regions in
the Latin American segment of the international labor market. Immigrants
to Latin America were also from latecomer countries of emigration in
Europe. Migrants were, to some extent, different from those who crossed
the Atlantic in the first waves. However, the difference was not so much
that Latin America received poorer and more backward immigrants than
the United States but that poorer and less literate migrants formed a higher
proportion of all immigrants in the 1880–1914 period because of the south-
ern shift in countries of origin. Segmentation of the international labor
market existed long before the mass migration era. Culture, language, and
diffusion of information through early migrants’ networks were powerful
forces directing southern Europeans toward Latin America.
Migration policy also played a role in attracting immigrants to the region.
Argentina followed an open-door immigration policy. Given the high wages
and existing demand for labor, not much more was needed to pull immi-
grants. Labor market conditions, political stability, and personal freedom
were the most powerful forces attracting immigrants. The most outstand-
ing immigration policy in Latin America was that of Brazil. The state of S
˜
ao
Paulo followed an active policy of subsidizing immigration from Europe
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426 Blanca S
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on a larger scale and for a longer time than any other country. In order
to understand the different migratory policies adopted by Latin American
governments, research should now go beyond the well-established facts to
take a new look at the received wisdom, such as the hypothesis that those
who gained most by immigration were the big landowners. The alleged
losers – traditionally neglected – should also be examined, particularly the
impact of immigration on the native labor force and unskilled labor, the
functioning of internal labor markets, and inequality trends in the long run.
The adjustment of immigrants to the host labor markets seems to have been
quite successful, particularly in the urban sector. However, future analysis
should distinguish between first- and second-generation immigrants.
Some qualifications can be made to the general characterization of immi-
grants to Latin America as generally unskilled and illiterate. Lack of skills
could have been an advantage in the adaptation process to new labor mar-
ket, which, for the majority, was the urban labor market. Rates of literacy
were lower among Latin American immigrants immigrating to the United
States, Canada, and Australia, but migrants were positively selected from
their countries of origin, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, according to
literacy. Immigrants had also higher literacy rates than the native population
in Latin America. Those countries that had the smallest native population
around 1870 and the largest inflow of European immigrants showed the
highest literacy rates around 1910.
Immigrants not only brought human capital with them, they also con-
tributed to the creation of social capital in the receiving countries. The
concept of social capital, based on trust, cooperation, and shared civic val-
ues for a given society, can be very usefully applied to the role immigrants
played in associational activities in Latin America. Social capital can be
related to political outcomes, such as public commitment to education
and social cohesion. Immigrants probably contributed in some countries
to economic development in the long run by creating social capital.
Immigration had an impact on labor force and population growth.
Migrants contributed as well to raise the dependent age groups in the
population, particularly children, in the medium and long run. Because
the debate regarding the influence of demography on economic growth
has shifted the emphasis from population size and growth to the economic
consequences of the age structure of the population, the impact of large
numbers of young immigrants to Latin American countries, other than
Argentina, is a particularly promising topic for future research.
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11
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
fernando reimers
OVERVIEW
Despite more than a century of intermittent progressive policy rhetoric,
schools in Latin America still marginalize the children of indigenous groups,
of rural populations, and of the poor. This paradox of a resilient conserva-
tive school practice and progressive education policy rhetoric is explained
by conflict among policy elites, first on the priority of educating the chil-
dren of the poor at high levels more generally and second on the purposes
of schooling, and by the ensuing discontinuities in policy and weak imple-
mentation of progressive aspirations.
Because educational results take time (it takes a while to build new
schools, to change curricula and print new books, and for teachers to learn
new ways), and because the linkages between policy rhetoric and policy
implementation and outcomes also take time, the conditions in Latin
American educational institutions reflect the tensions between two compet-
ing education ideologies and the cumulative influences of past projects. One
ideology, a series of progressive ideas and projects, espoused that schools
should build an inclusive and democratic social order, whereas another ide-
ology, a series of conservative ideas and initiatives, saw the purposes of
schools as supporting an authoritarian and exclusionary social structure.
This chapter examines these time lags, tensions, and coexistence of contra-
dictory ideologies in school practice to explicate why education policy
I appreciate the generous feedback of John Coatsworth, Manuel Contreras, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot,
Julie Reuben, and Rosemary Thorp to a draft of this chapter. Susan Kenyon provided valuable editing
suggestions.
427
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428 Fernando Reimers
implementation often trails policy talk in Latin America, and why short-
term victories of progressive views in policy rhetoric had limited conse-
quences for the actual learning opportunities of marginalized children.
To ward the end of the nineteenth century, the nations of Latin America
differed from most of the nations of Europe and the United States in the
relatively low level of education of their populations and, in particular,
in the deep education divides that separated the elites from marginalized
groups. In spite of state-led efforts to expand access to public education,
the twentieth century ended with equally important educational schisms
between the Latin American nations and their northern neighbors, as well
as internal divides based on social class, ethnicity, and location of residence.
This failure to close internal and external education gaps resulted from
the failure of economic and political elites to reach consensus on the need
to provide the children of the poor with real learning chances that would
prepare them to master the core subjects in the curricula, to think for
themselves, and to develop political voice and agency and from the lim-
ited channels through which the poor could hold education policymakers
accountable for the learning opportunities available to their children. The
centralization of education decision making early in the twentieth century
weakened the voice of local communities in the affairs of schools.
1
Edu-
cation thus became an arena ready to be captured by powerful interests,
the subject of national politics rather than of community politics. Because
democratic politics were exceptional throughout the century, poor parents
and local communities had limited means to hold the state accountable for
the dismally low learning chances available to their children. In addition,
the low levels of education of poor parents themselves limited their ability
to recognize the poor quality of the instruction offered to their children. It
was thus that the public purposes of school systems were captured to serve
the narrow interests of economic and business groups, teacher unions,
politicians, and education bureaucrats.
2
1
Carlos Newland attributes this to a profound mistrust of national governments on the part of local
officials and to the structure of public financing, which depended on taxes levied on foreign trade.
Carlos Newland, “Spanish American Elementary Education, 1950–1992:Bureaucracy, Growth and
Decentralization,” International Journal of Educational Development 15:2 (1995): 103–14.
2
There are two consequences of this lack of participation by poor parents and communities in educa-
tional governance. One is that their needs could not influence the availability and type of education
for their children. It was then difficult to replace existing educational institutions with local efforts
reflective of community needs and aspirations. A second consequence of the centralization of edu-
cational governance, as has been pointed out by David Plank and colleagues for Brazil, is that it
could then serve the private interests of politicians and bureaucrats, stimulating corruption and
clientelism. David Plank, Jose Amaral, and Antonio da Ressureic¸
˜
ao Xavier, “Why Brazil Lags Behind
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Education and Social Progress 429
Education policy was shaped by three sets of political actors and
processes: first, by national politics in which education reform was embed-
ded. Second, by the political mobilization and exchanges of actors with
vested interests in education: namely, parents, students, teachers, and
administrators. Last, education reforms were influenced by cross-national
and global forces as local political groups, social entrepreneurs, and interna-
tional actors and institutions mobilized ideologies and resources to advance
their objectives. Because of the centralization of educational governance,
national-level politics and transnational influences played a greater role than
local school or district-level politics in shaping the purposes of schools dur-
ing the twentieth century.
3
Throughout the twentieth century, the state became the most important
actor in an unprecedented expansion of access to formal education in Latin
America.
4
The main gains of the progressive projects were in this quanti-
tative expansion. The struggle for equity was also played out, though with
far less success, in reforms that aimed to incorporate into school the most
marginalized groups. The oldest of these reforms, those directed toward
indigenous and rural children, were highly contested, resulting in the per-
sistent educational marginalization of these groups. The most recent of
these reforms also competed with objectives to enhance the efficiency of
the education system: reforms that were advanced preferentially by gov-
ernments and politicians building alliances with external actors and insti-
tutions. Throughout the century, there was least progress in aligning the
content of the curriculum with the aspiration to educate free minds and
democratic citizens. This chapter discusses how politics shaped the struggle
for educational opportunity in these various reforms.
To study the struggle between these two competing ideologies, I look
at policy rhetoric, implementation, and outcomes as they illuminate the
arenas where this struggle took place. Contestation generally began with
the policy agenda. The paper trail of constitutions, laws, declarations, and
in Educational Development,” in Nancy Birdsall and Richard Sabot, eds., Opportunity Foregone.
Education in Brazil (Baltimore, MD, 1996), 117–46.
3
It is possible that this “top heavy” emphasis of my analysis results from my focus on public education
and on large-scale reform. I have not focused on small-scale, grassroots, and local educational initiatives
where perhaps the politics are different. My choice of perspective is based on the fact that, as I
demonstrate in this chapter, the state became the major agent in sponsoring education throughout
the century.
4
Not all education takes place in formal educational institutions. Informal and nonformal efforts
play a very important role in the creation and re-creation of roles and expectations of culture and
socialization and of the social and cultural capital of different social groups.
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430 Fernando Reimers
education plans is the dominant focus of analysis in this chapter. This
focus is complemented by examination of implementation, particularly
as reflected in specific policies, programs, and projects and in changes in
quantitative indicators of opportunity to access educational institutions as
well as in changes in the educational attainment and achievement of the
population.
THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
BEFORE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
States became actors in the development of education because policy elites
thought schools could contribute to larger social purposes, a basic tenet
of the progressive education ideology. Throughout the twentieth century,
states supported the development of schooling for a variety of purposes,
including “modernizing” societies, preparing human resources to increase
the productivity of the labor force, developing national identity, or trans-
forming the structure of opportunity and fostering social mobility, and
only rarely to form democratic citizens. The twentieth-century competi-
tion between the progressive and conservative education projects focused
on those objectives, on who should be educated and how, on the duration
and financing of compulsory education, and on who should attend other
levels and types of education and for what purpose. More recently, the dif-
ferences also revolve around whether special initiatives should be supported
to reach marginalized groups.
The conservative educational ideology reflected long-term trends estab-
lished in colonial times. This ideology saw education as instrumental to
reinforcing existing social stratification and organization. Those who thus
saw their privileges as dependent on the educational marginalization of
large groups of the population supported education policies with distinct
exclusionary goals.
5
These ideas were advanced by elected officials, often
authoritarian rulers, educational institutions, and a dominant culture that
perceived the children of the poor as inferior, thus justifying educational
apartheid.
5
Foranextended discussion of the contribution of elite values, reflecting a feudal structure, to
the underdevelopment of Latin American societies, see Seymour Lipset, “Values, Education and
Entrepreneurship,” in Seymour Lipset and Aldo Solari, eds., Elites in Latin America (Oxford, 1967),
3–60.For a more recent discussion, see Howard Wiarda, The Soul of Latin America (New Haven,
CT, 2002).
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Education and Social Progress 431
During the twentieth century, this conservative ideology was challenged
byaprogressive alternative, which sought to expand the learning oppor-
tunities of marginalized groups. The roots of the progressive view extend
back to the independence movement and to the creation of the modern
republics. The operators of progressive projects were modern political par-
ties and coalitions between an emerging group of industrialists and the
newly incorporated political actors: migrants into cities and immigrants
in the countries in the south. The main gains of the progressive project
were the creation of public education systems; universalization of primary
education; unprecedented educational expansion at all levels, with conse-
quent intergenerational educational mobility; and a silent revolution that
significantly diminished the gender gap in educational opportunity.
Whereas the conservative ideology saw education as an instrument to
preserve the birth rights of elites in unequal societies, the progressive view
6
saw it as instrument to build a new social order, a new American identity,
and, only episodically and more recently, a more just and inclusive society.
The conservative view accepted that social origin should also be social
destiny and that education would mediate this by excluding subdominant
groups from certain levels of education or by expecting schools to develop
a limited range of skills among the poor. In contrast, the progressive view
espoused that schools could develop talent among all children and that in
so doing they could alter the distribution of social opportunities. Often,
progressives espoused broader expectations for the skills and dispositions
that schools should develop, at times focusing on educating democratic
citizens, whereas conservatives remained more interested in having schools
prepare people for work.
The competition between these perspectives predates the twentieth cen-
tury. The main progressive legacies of this early period were an ideology
and a legal and institutional framework supportive of public education
and of compulsory primary education. Conservative legacies included the
social acceptance of unequal educational opportunities for different social
groups and of education practices, especially at the lower levels, emphasizing
6
The roots of the progressive education ideology in Europe are in the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau
in the eighteenth century and of the Utopians, Thomas More and Francis Bacon, in the sixteenth
century. They established the intellectual foundations to link education and social reform. In the
United States, John Dewey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries articulated most
clearly the links between education and social change. Many see him as the main figure of Progressive
Education, which is linked to a larger movement of social reform known as the Progressive Movement.
The roots of Progressive Education in North America predate Dewey, extending back to the ideas of
Horace Mann and Francis Parker in Massachussetts.