Globalization of Peruvian Migration

International Peruvian migration represents a rather recent development. Although the first migration flows of Peruvians can be traced back to the 1920s (Altamirano, 1999), it was not until the late 1990s that they turned into a mass phenomenon. The outflow peaked between 2006 and 2010, with more than 200,000 Peruvians leaving their country per year on average (INEI,2015). A particular characteristic of international Peruvian migration is the diversity of destinations : unlike migrants from other Latin American or Caribbean countries, Peruvians are dispersed across many countries. The United States was the preferred destination of Peruvian migrants, counting at present for one third of the approximately 2.6 million Peruvian migrants worldwide (INEI,2015), but has become less accessible since the mid-1980s due to tightened migration policies and stricter border controls (Takenaka, Paerregaard, & Berg, 2010). At the same time, countries like Japan, Italy and Spain began to facilitate the entry of Peruvian migrants in order to satisfy those countries' growing need for labour in the manufacturing industry and the care and domestic work sector. More recently, Argentina and Chile have also become popular destinations, especially for working-class Peruvians.

So far, the transnational ties of Peruvian migrants in different host countries have been explored; this includes the United States (Berg, 2015), Spain (Díaz Gorfinkiel & Escrivá, 2012), Chile (Nuñez Carrasco, 2010) and Italy (Skornia, 2014). These qualitative observations point to a variety of modes through which Peruvian migrants maintain contact with their significant others in Peru, including regular information and communications technology (ICT)-based communication, the sending of gifts and remittances and frequent visits to the country of origin (Horn, 2019). Peruvian migrant women have been shown to feel particularly responsible for the lives and fates of their family members ‘left behind’ (Leinaweaver, 2010; Skornia, 2014). These findings align with literature on transnational motherhood (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2003; Erel, 2002; Hondagneu-Sotelo & Avila, 1997), which emphasises the gendered nature of caregiving within transnational family contexts. Quantitative studies on Peruvian migrants' cross-border activities support these findings, revealing a positive association between being female and frequent visits to the country of origin (Horn, 2017). Similarly, Peruvian migrant women have been shown to remit a larger share of their monthly income than their male counterparts do (Horn, 2016).

Studies on migrants' well-being are largely coloured by methodological nationalism according to which nation-states are the quasinatural container or fundamental frame for social practices (Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). As a consequence, theoretical premises and methodological approaches in the field tend to overlook dimensions in people's lives that go beyond the borders and boundaries of a defined national territory. In other words, the focus of well-being literature lies primarily on factors related to the migrants' country of residence, whereas transnational ties and family formations often go unnoticed. Nevertheless, a small but increasing body of literature exists, which examines and theorises about the implications of transnational ties for migrants' well-being.

References:

Horn,V (06 july of 2020).Transnational ties or stressor on Peruvian migrants well being?

Recovered from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2356