Gender, migration and urban development in Costa Rica: the case of Guanacaste

Geoforum, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 237~253,199l Printed in Great Britain

0

00s718591$3.00+0.00 1991 Pergamon Pm8

plc

Gender, Migration and Urban Development in Costa Rica: the Case of

SYLVIA

CHANT,*

London,

U.K.

Abstract: This paper explores the reasons for urban growth in a peripheral region of Central America: Guanacaste province, north-west Costa Rica. While one of the major factors responsible for urbanisation in other parts of Latin America has been the expansion of economic activities in urban areas, the continued dominance of rural employment among the poor in Guanacastecc towns and high rates of seasonal out-migration to labour markets elsewhere in the country suggest that other factors may be more important. On the basis of an in-depth survey of 350 low-income households in three towns in the province, Liberia, Cat%, and Santa Crux, this paper finds that rural-urban movement in Guanacaste is much more strongly linked to the reproductive (e.g. housing, welfare) needs of household survival, than productive (e.g. employment, income) imperatives. The spatial divisions of labour which arise between household members in these different aspects of survival closely correspond with gender divisions of labour: men form the bulk of seasonal labour migrants, while women tend to remain behind in the towns to manage domestic work and child-care. This paper is concerned to explore the reasons for these associations, and their implications for women. In highlighting the importance of taking gender into account to explain the increasingly differentiated nature of urban growth in Latin America, this paper also stresses the need to examine in greater depth the factors contributing to current patterns of gender-selective migration in the continent.

Introduction

the largest centres

It is widely known that, of all regions of the developing world, Latin America has undergone the most dramatic increase in urbanisation in the post-war period (GUGLER, 1988). By 1980 nearly half of the population lived in towns and cities of 20,000 or more inhabitants, compared to only a quarter in 1950 [see GILBERT (1990, p. 45)]. By the year 2000 it is estimated that two-thirds of the population will be urban. It is also widely recognised that migration has played a major role in this demographic transition, even if natural increase in the urban population in situ is now the most important

component

of growth

in

* Department of Geography, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, U.K.

(GILBERT, 1990). While several interpretations have been offered for Latin America’s urban transformation, the expansion of economic activities in urban areas is usually acknowledged as a major contributory factor. This is exemplified by the frequently selective distribution of rural-urban migrants in one or two cities with disproportionate shares of national production: this leads to ‘top heavy’ settlement hierarchies and is generally referred to as ‘urban primacy’ (BUTTERWORTH and CHANCE, 1981; GILBERT, 1990; GILBERT and GUGLER, ,1982). Even if the persistence of primacy is now being called into question in the light of recent economic and demographic trends in the continent [see, for example, PORTES (1989)], the notion that employment and income opportunities in towns play a key role in attracting migrants remains. However, it would also appear to be the case that

237

238

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NICARAGUA

CARIBBEAN SEA

PACIFIC OCEAN 0 Study cities 0

San Jo& 0

50 km

I

J

Figure 1. Costa Rica: location of Guanacaste

some towns experience in-migration for reasons other than their labour market potential. The purpose of the present paper, therefore, is to explore the factors fuelling urbanisation in a peripheral region with no major expansion in urban-based employment opportunities: Guanacaste province, north-west Costa Rica (see Figure l).* Being one of Costa Rica’s poorest provinces, with a long history of temporary and permanent out-migration, high unemployment, and traditionally low levels of urban growth, it is somewhat surprising that rates of in-migration to certain towns in Guanacaste have begun to increase significantly in the last 10-15 years. Among the towns with highest growth rates are Liberia (the provincial capital), Caiias, and Santa Cruz (see Figure 1). On the basis of an in-depth survey of low-income groups, this paper attempts to establish why people have begun to move in larger numbers to these three centres, and to provide an explanation for urbanisation in the province3 As in other parts of Latin America, movement into Guanacasteco towns has been mainly from rural

province and study centres.

areas, albeit much more localised than in larger centres in the continent. Beyond this, instead of inmigration being primarily attributable to the productive (e.g. work, income) needs of poor households, rural-urban movement in Guanacaste appears to derive to a much greater degree from the reproductive (e.g. housing, welfare) imperatives of household survival.4 Central to this interpretation is, first, a perspective on the role played in urban Guanacasteco household survival strategies of temporary outmigration to external labour markets, and second, the gender- and age-differentiated nature of shortterm mobility.5 While whole family units often move from rural areas in Guanacaste to Liberia, Carias, and Santa Crux, paucity of year-round employment for men in these destinations means that male household members often spend considerable amounts of time migrating on a temporary basis to work in other parts of the country. While the income their female counterparts earn locally is often an important component of household survival, the majority of families depend on remittances from male household heads and younger household members (sons and

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daughters) for a significant (if seasonally variable) part of their income. Given the common division of adult male and female work into productive and reproductive elements of household survival, the spatial divisions of labour in urban Guanacasteco households closely correspond with gender divisions of labour. This paper aims not only to show how the analysis of such gender divisions of labour among the poor constitute a vital element in the explanation of recent urban growth in Guanacaste province, but also to pinpoint some of the implications of the fusion of sexual and spatial divisions of labour for women in the study centres, and to comment on the relevance of the findings for the study of rural-urban migration and urbanisation in Latin America generally. This paper is organised into six main sections. The first provides a background to Costa Rica with particular reference to migration and urbanisation in the post-war period. In addition to setting Guaitacaste within the national context, it also includes a brief resume of the major economic and demographic characteristics of the three study centres. The second section describes the origins and characteristics of inmigrants in the author’s sample survey of 350 lowincome households and the main factors cited by respondents in their decisions to move. In order to explore in more depth why low-income households have moved to towns with few employment opportunities, the next section looks at household survival strategies of poor residents in the study centres, with particular emphasis on the gender and age selectivity of short-term out-migration to external labour markets. The fourth section offers some interpretations for the apparent linkages between the genderdifferentiated nature of short-term labour mobility and the dominance of reproductive factors in household decisions to move to Guanacasteco towns. The fifth section details some of the implications the above patterns of long- and short-term population movement for women, while the sixth and final section identifies the significance of the findings for studies of rural-urban migration in the wider Latin American context.

Migration and Urbanisation in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is the wealthiest country in Central America as measured by GNP, which in 1988 stood at $1690 U.S. per capita (WORLD BANK, 1990). Costa Rica is essentially an agrarian economy (PERNANDEZ, 1983; SHEAHAN, 1987) which exports an average of two-thirds of its agricultural produce (GONZALEZ-

239

VEGA, 1984, p. 353). In turn it is highly dependent on imported manufactured goods which represent about 27% of all goods consumed domestically (GAYLE, 1986, p. 76). Although agriculture’s share of GDP has fallen in the last 20 or so years (from 24% in 1965 to 21% in 1986), it still employs around 30% of the economically active population (WORLD BANK, 1988). In spite of government efforts to diversify the agro-export base towards nontraditional commodities such as flowers and omamental plants, external trade is heavily reliant on a small number of more typical tropical products, principally coffee, bananas, meat, and sugar, which between them make up 65% of national exports (GAYLE, 1986, p. 76). While world recession has affected all sectors of the Costa Rican economy inthe last decade, industry has experienced the sharpest decline, with annual growth falling from 8.7% in the period 1965-1980 to 2.3% in 1980-1988 (WORLD BANK, 1990).6 Despite expansion in the 1970s historically industrialisation in Costa Rica has been heavily constrained by the small size of the internal market, as well as a paucity of raw materials (HALL, 1985; IZURIETA, 1982; SHEAHAN, 1987), even if the country has a higher percentage of its work-force in industry that in other Central American countries (DIAZ-BRIQUETS, 1989, p. 38). Costa Rica’s main manufactures consist of basic consumer goods such as food and beverages, plastics, chemicals, textiles, flowers, and wood and leather products (GAYLE, 1986, p. 79). Import substitution industries and multinational offshore production plants which dominate the industrial structure are heavily dependent upon foreign technology and components, and in the early 1980s it was estimated that $80 U.S. of imports were needed for every $100 U.S. in output value (GAYLE, 1986, p. 80). With a population currently in the region of only 2.8 million (MIDEPLAN, 1989), low birth-rates, high per capita foreign debt,7 and cut-backs in government expenditure and investment, prospects for substantial growth in the industrial sector, at least in the immediate future, are extremely limited. Yet, is spite of the restrained nature of industrial growth, in the last 50-60 years annual rates of urban population growth’ have exceeded those of rural areas (HALL, 1985). Notwithstanding that the vast majority of urban settlements in Costa Rica are extremely small (often with as few as 2000 inhabitants), in 1984,44% of Costa Rica’s population lived in urban areas,g compared to only 19% in 1927,29% in 1950,31% in 1963, and 37% in 1973 (MIDEPLAN, 1989, pp. 206207).

240 Urban growth in the twentieth century has stemmed primarily from the displacement of rural people through the concentration of land and increased use of capital-intensive production methods associated with the expansion of export-oriented agriculture (BROWN and JONES, 1985; HALL, 1985). Growth in urban employment opportunities per se, on the other hand, have been deemed a ‘negligible factor’ in the urban transition (TAYLOR, 1980, p. 76). On average only one-quarter of urban employment in Costa Rica is in the secondary sector (comprising industry, construction, electricity, gas, and water), although undoubtedly higher wages and better public facilities in urban areas have played some role in stimulating movement (HALL, 1985). This is especially true of the capital, San Jose, which has attracted a disproportionate number of rural-urban migrants, particularly since the 1950s (CARVAJAL and VARGAS, 1985). Located in the core of the central highlands and benefiting from the best climatic and ecological conditions in the country, highlydeveloped transport and communications networks, and an almost exclusive concentration of national administrative functions, the capital’s share of national urban dwellers is around 60% (RIBERA, 1987). Taking into account the nearby towns of Alajuela, Heredia, and Cartago, that form part of the Greater Metropolitan Area of San Jose, the capital and its hinterland contain four-fifths of the urban population of the country (LAVELL and ARGUELLO, 1987). Ninety-five per cent of all secondary schools in Costa Rica are situated in the San Jose Metropolitan Area, as are 95% of all professionals, and over 80% of manufacturing production (GAYLE, 1986). Outside San Jose, growth has been much more limited. As HALL (1985, p. 208) notes, “Costa Rica is still. . . a country of predominantly small towns”. The five largest towns outside the San Jose Metropolitan Region, namely, Limbn, Puntarenas, Liberia, San Isidro El General, and Cuidad Quesada, while containing four-fifths of the non-central urban population, and 18% of the total urban population of the country, have only modest populations in themselves (ranging between 20,000 and 55,000 inhabitants each) (LAVELL and ARGUELLO, 1987).

Guanacaste Despite the fact that Liberia numbers among these significant non-central secondary cities, it is one of the smallest in the group, and highlights Guanacaste’s

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position as one of the least urbanised regions in the country. While we have already seen that the Costa Rican space economy is heavily centralised, with the vast bulk of population and productive activity located in the central highlands, of all regions Guanacaste is arguably among the most ‘peripheral’. Longidentified as a ‘problem area’ (MORALES, 1975), Guanacaste’s geographical position in the north-west of the country resulted in isolation from the core of the economy both during and after the colonial period. When major investment eventually came to the region in the 1950s it was mainly from San Jose or abroad (BARTON et al., 1988). A comparative regional study carried out by the Ministry of Planning (then the Office of Planning) in the early 1980s showed Guanacaste to be very disadvantaged on a number of indicators, including income levels, unemployment, infant mortality, and absence of industrialisation (OFIPLAN, 1981). Subsequent studies by the same organisation suggest that this situation has changed very little. For example, while 13% of all deaths in Costa Rica in 1987 occurred in infants under 1 year old, this figure was 18.7% in Guanacaste (MIDEPLAN, 1988c); and whereas unemployment among the economically active population of the country as a whole is officially estimated at 5.5% this figure is 10.7% for Guanacaste (MIDEPLAN, 1988b). Indeed, while Guanacaste covers about onefifth of the Costa Rican land area, it has less than onetenth of the national population,” and for several years has been a net exporter of population to other regions of the country. In the period 1968-1973 Guanacaste lost more population than any other region (CARVAJAL, 1983), and between 1973 and 1983 the number of inhabitants in the province increased by only 7.1% compared with a national average of 29.1% (RAABE CERCONE, 1987a). The roots of Guanacaste’s depopulation are firmly embedded in post-war changes in rural production. Trends towards the large-scale production of meat, rice, and sugar for the export market over the last 30-40 years have led to major losses in rural employintensifying processes of both ment , thereby and semi-permanent out-migration permanent (GUDMUNDSON, 1982). While Costa Rica’s population has always been mobile, especially in areas of extensive agriculture (SANDNER, 1970; VARELA and GONZALEZ, 1987), long-term out-migration has been especially heavy from cattle-ranching areas (HALL, 1985; WILLIAMS, 1986). Indeed TAYLOR (1980, p. 83) has commented that, of all commercial agricultural activities, beef production has had the greatest social costs for rural people.

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Given that towns in Guanacaste have experienced little in the way of growth in urban employment to absorb labour displaced by the rural sector (both in absolute terms and relative to other urban centres in the country), it is difficult to imagine why people have recently begun to move to them in greater numbers. The absence of major expansion in labour demand in the three study centres is highlighted in the following brief economic and demographic profiles.

The relatively low levels of primary activity among the economically-active population in Liberia are possibly due to the nature of agricultural activities in the immediate environs of the town: rice and sorghum, both of which are hig~y-mech~ised, and cat~e-ranching, which has low demands for labour, are dominant among local forms of rural production, although crops with higher, if seasonally variable, labour requirements, such as sugar cane and cotton, are also cultivated (IFAM, 1987).

Liberia

Liberia’s rate of population growth over the period 1973-1984 was 2.67%) higher than the national average (2.3%) and fastest in Guanacaste with the single exception of Canas (2.77%) (INVU, 1985).11 According to the 1984 census, 32.8% of Liberia’s inhabitant had been born outside the canton, with one-fifth of this figure representing foreign immigrants. l2 The author’s survey of 150 households from two major low-income settlements in Liberia in 1989 suggests that proportions of poor migrants are around twice as high. Detailed discussion of these figures and the reasons behind them are explored in depth later in this paper.

Liberia, the largest of the three towns, is also the northernmost centre with a population currently estimated by the municipality to be in the region of 25,000 inhabitants (see Figure 1). Liberia was founded originally in 1769, although it did not really experience any growth until the nineteenth century, when it became more important as a centre of local trade (VALLE, 1985). Aside from being the principal commercial and service centre of Guanacaste (LAVELL and ARGUELLO, 1987), as the provincial capital Liberia possesses the lion’s share of public investment in the province such as a major hospital, the regional centre of the University of Costa Rica (inaugurated in 1976), and a range of government offices. To some extent the installation of public in~astmcture has increased labour demand, particularly for professionals, many of whom have come from San Jose. However, as far as the low-income population are concerned, growth in job opportunities has been largely confined to small-scale tertiary activities such as domestic service and petty commerce. Industries are limited to indust~al storage, fertiliser plants, slaughter houses, tanneries, and one or two cotton mills (INVU, 1980). In 1984 27.5% of the population were estimated to be working in the primary sector, 17.5% in the secondary sector, and 43.7% in the tertiary sector. While the proportion of the labour force in agriculture in Liberia is lower than that for Guanacaste province as a whole (50.4%) and higher proportions are involved in secondary and tertiary activities compared to respective provincial totals of 12.2 and 27.1%) unemployment in Liberia affects 11.7% of the economically active pop~ation and is actually greater than the provincial average of 10.7% (IFAM, 1987). Indeed, between 1976 and 1984, a study of the five most important non-central secondary centres in Costa Rica mentioned earlier (Liberia, Limdn, Puntarenas, San Isidro El General, and Cuidad Quesada) showed Liberia to have the worst employment trends over this period of national economic crisis (LAVELL and ARGUELLO, 1987).

Calzas Cafias presents a rather different picture in that there has been slightly greater expansion of local labour demand for low-income groups. Lying 40 km to the south-east of Liberia it has the second largest population of the study centres, currently estimated to be in the region of 17,000 ~habitants (see Figure 1).13 Growth received a major impetus in the 1970s with the building of an artificial lake at the foot of the Arena1 Volcano to supply a major hydroelectric plant in the nearby municipality of Tilaran. Construction work associated with these projects attracted large numbers of male migrants and their families to the area. Subsequent investment in a major hydroelectric plant and irrigation project in the Arenal-Tempisque district funded by the Ministry of Water Resources [SENARA (Secretarfa de Aguas Subterraneas, Riego y Avenamiento)] in the 1980s has also provided further employment for men (RAABE CERCONE, 1987b). A key objective of the irrigation scheme is to diversify agriculture and encourage the cultivation of more labour-intensive crops such as melons, citrus fruits, sweet chilli, and so on. Although most of the benefits of the scheme will go to large farmers, there has been some attempt to provide Xl-ha plots for small farmers under the direction of the Agrarian

242 Development Agrario)] .

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Despite the importance of building works in attracting migrants, according to the 1984 census, only 19.2% of Carlas labour force were employed in secondary activities, compared to 30.3% in tertiary activities, and as many as 41.6% in the primary sector (IFAM, 1987). Other than construction, small amounts of secondary sector employment are provided by local agro-processing plants (sugar, alcohol, rice, for example). Much of Caiias tertiary employment lies in the commercial sector. The municipal market, recently rehoused in a new building and specialising in the sale of fresh fruit, flowers, and vegetables, is one of the largest in the province. Small-scale trading activities are also kept reasonably buoyant on account of the fact that Caiias is a major centre for communications in north-east Guanacaste-all traffic to the nearby cantons of Bagaces and Tilaran must pass through the town. None the less, the primary sector is by far the dominant employer of the local populace. l4 The principal activities in the rural areas around the town are, first, sugar cane, followed by rice, sorghum, cotton, and stock-raising. There are also one or two forestry reserves which provide some employment for local people (IFAM, 1987). While demand for labour in sugar cultivation fluctuates widely over the year, it provides 7 times as much employment per hectare as cattle-raising (WILLIAMS, 1986), and in this respect since its commercial introduction in the 1960s has been a significant source of work in the locality (IFAM, 1987). Indeed unemployment in Caiias is lower than in both the other centres at only 7.6% (IFAM, 1987). Most sugar production is concentrated in private hands: the Hacienda Taboga, for example, a 4400-ha holding on the outskirts of the town with three-quarters of its land under sugar cultivation, was founded in 1958 by a Costa Rican family with shareholders from the U.S.A., Cuba, and Nicaragua. In addition to its own produce, the Taboga also processes sugar grown on a further 2500 ha belonging to other local farms. For most of the year, during the period from May to December (the ‘zafra muertu’ or ‘dead harvest’), about 500 workers are employed to maintain machinery, to renovate the cane fields, to plant, and so on. But during the ‘zufiu uctivu’ or ‘active harvest’ (also referred to as the ‘torte de cufiu’), when the cane is cut (January-April), an additional 1000 workers are taken on, 25% of whom are retained until July for cleaning the fields and fertilising. l5

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A slightly greater demand for labour in Carlas, which has undoubtedly played some role in attracting migrants in the 1970s and 198Os, is counterposed by slightly lower inducements in respect of social services. For example, instead of boasting a hospital (as does Liberia) or a major health centre (as does Santa Cruz), Carias’s state health services are confined to a small clinic. In the field of education, while Liberia has a regional university centre and Santa Cruz is the headquarters for decentralised university extension services in the province, Carias has no tertiary education institute. Thus, while a comparatively high labour demand may lead to the expectation of greater in-migration, this is probably outweighed by the relative underprovision of key public services, in turn helping to explain the (fact that census figures for migrants into the town are only slightly higher than for Liberia. The 1984 census records 37.2% of Caiias’s population as having been born outside the canton, with 16% of these having been born outside the country.

Santa Cruz The final centre, Santa Cruz, is the southernmost town in the study, and that which is the least dynamic of the three (see Figure 1). Its population is currently around 12,500, and between 1973 and 1984 growth was only 1.7% p.a. (INVU, 1985). The only industrial activities in Santa Cruz are a sawmill, and one or two ice-making plants (‘@wicus de hielo), and breezeblock manufacturers (bloquerus). In this respect, it is no surprise that only 8.5% of the labour force are involved in the secondary sector, compared to 26.4% in services and commerce, and as many as 52.8% in the primary sector (IFAM, 1987). Unemployment in Santa Cruz is not only higher than the other two centres in the study, but also higher than the average for the province as a whole (IFAM, 1987). Local rural activities are more diverse than those around Canas and Liberia and include maize, beans, and coffee, as well as rice, sugar cane, and cattle. However, the expansion of stock raising threatens to squeeze out this diversity. Since 1960 a tendency towards the consolidation of ranches over 1000 ha in size has been such that the National Insititute of Housing and Urbanism estimates that, by the year 2000, 90% of rural land in the canton of Santa Cruz will be under pasture (INVU, 1981). Despite the apparent lack of rural and urban job opportunities in the vicinity, the town of Santa Cruz

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243

has still attracted migrants, as will now be discussed in more detail.

elsewhere. This allowed some perspective to be obtained in respect of gender differences in long-term rural-urban migration.

Low-income Migrants Origins, Characteristics

Referring first to the general data gathered in the larger survey of 350 households, a total of 64% out of 150 in Liberia were migrants, 68.3% out of 120 in Canas, and 66.2% out of 80 in Santa Cruz. The largest proportion of migrants in each city had been born in other parts of Guanacaste (see Figure 2), with signiflcant numbers having been born in Nicaragua (in the cases of Liberia and Cafias),17 and smaller proportions in the neighbouring provinces of Puntarenas and Alajuela.

in Guanacaste’s Towns: and Reasons for Moving

Figures from the author’s sample survey of 350 lowincome households in Liberia, Caiias, and Santa Cruz suggest that migration has been considerably higher among the poor than among the population in general, as indicated by the census data presented in the previous section. Migrant status of households in the author’s survey was based on whether the adult woman in the household (wife or partner of a male household head, or female head in her own right) was a native of the town or had been born outside it. The choice to use women’s rather than men’s places of origin as an indicator of migrant status derived from the assumption that households would probably contain an adult female if not an adult male. This in turn was based on widespread observation in, both Costa Rica and Latin America generally, that urban households are often female-headed, either on a de jure or de facto basis.r6 Having said this, data on male migrant status were gathered in a subsample of in-depth interviews with 70 households, of which 58 contained either a coresident male or a man who was temporarily working

In all towns the mean year of arrival was 1978, with the vast bulk of the population moving in between 1976 and 1980. Most women have undertaken migration as part of a family unit, either with parents, husbands, or children. ‘* Only around 10% of women in all three towns had moved to the towns alone, and of this number around 70% joined relatives already in the centres. Data from the subsample of 58 households where women had a male partner (in residence or temporarily working elsewhere) show that women migrants are slightly more prevalent than male migrants. Although proportions were equal in Santa Cruz, in Liberia 70% of women were migrants compared to 55.6% of men, and in CarTas the figures were 64.8 and 58.8%, respectively. The tendency for

I

Guanacaste Outside country Puntarenas

- Nicaragua

b ) b

Alajuela Limdn San Jose’

0 km 50

I> B

Outside country Heredia

Figure 2. Guanacaste: province of birth of migrant women in the study centres.

- Panama

244 women to dominate rural-urban migration in Guanacaste is broadly consistent with patterns observed in other parts of Latin America as well as Costa Rica [see, for example, ALBERT (1982), BUITERWORTH and CHANCE (1981), GILBERT and GUGLER (1982)) RADCLIFFE (1991)) and SKELDON (1990)]. This is usually attributed to women’s limited access to agricultural employment in the continent , and comparatively greater income opportunities in towns [see, for example, BRYDON and CHANT (1989, Chap. 5)]. However, in the case of urban Guanacaste, there does not seem to be a major labour demand for either women or men, a fact which is highlighted when considering people’s own statements about why they had left their home areas. In response to questions about why respondents had moved to the study centres, only 3.5% identified employment opportunities in the towns as having been the main factor in their decision to migrate. On the other hand, 58% of migrant households stressed the overriding importance of luck of work in their previous place of residence. Most had come from regions dominated by cattle-ranching, or the cultivation of rice, maize, and beans. Of all farming activities, cattle-raising and rice-growing are among those with the lowest demands for labour: cattlefarming employs only a small core of permanent ranch hands and some temporary labour to clear pasture, while irrigated rice cultivation has become increasingly mechanised and again requires only a few skilled operatives to handle and maintain machinery. As such, the vast majority had moved for reasons attached to reduced opportunities for economic survival in former locations. A further 9% of migrants (all of whom were Nicaraguan and had moved directly into Liberia and Carias), stressed political conflict in their country as their main reason for having left. The remaining 33% of all migrants identified factors which had inducedthem to move to the towns. Of this group, 48% had moved to join kin, 43% because the towns were felt to be better provisioned with education and/or health services than their areas of origin, and 10% to find work (or 3.5% of the total sample, as mentioned above). Overall, then, only a fraction of migrants in the survey identified access to work in the towns as having prompted their decision to move, even if most had migrated because of lack of it in their places of origin, which, by implication, could mean that urban labour markets were regarded as more favourable. None the less, an examination of the household survival strategies of low-income households in the study centres underlines the point that employment opportunities in the

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towns themselves play only a partial role in family maintenance, and provides important clues as to why people have still selected them to move to.

Household Survival Strategies and Santa Cruz

in Liberia, Cailas,

Lack of regular and/or well-paid employment in the towns and their immediate vicinities prompts many households in all three centres to send various members to external labour markets for varying lengths of time. The proportion of households dependent for part or all of their income from remittances from migrant members is just over 50% in the summer months when local employment opportunities are at their lowest (rising from a level of 22% in April-May when there is still some employment for men at the tail end of the cane harvest). The average amount of household income received in the form of remittances by these households is 55%. For most respondents, temporary out-migration was something they had traditionally practised from rural areas, and no major disadvantage was attached to continuation with the strategy after settlement in the towns. Indeed, some respondents emphasised that moving to the urban areas had eased the process somewhat since the towns were better provided with transport and communications links. None the less, the important point in terms of the present discussion is that most households resort to temporary migration in order to compensate for lack of jobs in the three study centres. Added to the number of people who are also reliant on social security payments of various types, such as old age pensions and child benefits, a total of 68% of households are supported by income other than local earnings in the summer, and around 38% in the spring.l’ Regarding the gender- and age-selectivity of temporary migrants, adult males figure prominently amongst those moving to external labour markets. This is partly due to the fact that men have more limited opportunities for regular employment in the study centres than their female counterparts, and partly because they are freer to move alone than women who are almost invariably tied to the home through the care of children. Although towns in Guanacaste offer little in the way of income-generating opportunities for either women or men, the general feeling was that women could find work more easily than their male counterparts, mainly because major branches of employment for women, particularly domestic service, are characterised by fairly constant

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Table 1. Branch of work of men and women in the study

centres* Branch of employment Agriculture/fishing/forestry Mining Industry Electricity/gas/water Construction Transport Finance/banks/real estate Commerce Public/private services not mentioned above (e.g. domestic service) Housework Unemployed Retired/permanent illness Total

Women

%

Merit

%

75 2 6 4 43 26 1 19 23

30.8 0.8 2.5 1.6 17.7 10.7 0.4 7.8 9.5

1

0.3

49 41

14.2 11.9

30 14 243

12.3 5.8 100.0

242 3 9 344

70.3 0.9 2.6 100.0

*Source: author’s questionnaire survey carried out in April-May 1989. Six households in the survey were nuclear-compound structures. Nuclear-compound households are units comprised of two or more families who reside on the same plot but do not share cooking and financial arrangements (at least on a regular basis). While this group were interviewed on migrant origins, details of their employment and financial arrangements were not recorded because of the difficulties involved in making direct comparisons with the majority of households which function as integrated units. tFigures here relate only to men actually living in the study centres at the time, not those away working in other parts of the country.

year-round demand for labour. As such, most women in the study centres can find work as and when they want, and for the length of time they want, albeit in a narrow range of occupations which are generally lowpaid (see Table 1). Although most women are housepersons, except in Santa Cruz, many work as domestic servants or in small-scale home-based commercial activities. Adult women do occasionally migrate, although they are easily the least mobile of household members. Women’s migration is either undertaken with their whole families (to pick coffee in the central highlands during the 3 week harvest in SeptemberOctober, for example) or for very short periods alone, as domestic servants, to San Jose, sometimes to relieve relatives taking an annual holiday. Obviously women can only do the latter if they have teenage daughters or female kin in Guanacaste with whom to leave young children. As it was, none were away during the survey period. Male household heads on the other hand tend to have less opportunity for employment in the towns themselves, and instead have to rely quite heavily on

agricultural work in the immediate hinterlands (see Table 1). Even then, men’s employment in the three localities is usually very casual, sometimes lasting up to 3 months, but often for only 1 or 2 days at a time. Those who cannot obtain contract work for fixed periods rise early in the morning and wait at filling stations on nearby highway intersections to pick up odd construction and loading jobs. Alternatively, during the cane harvest they rise at 3 a.m. to await collection by truck to take them to the fields. In this respect the male workers of Guanacaste resemble a category of rural day labourer in Brazil known as the ‘boia-fiia’ described by SPINDEL (1985) and STANDING ( 1985).20 Numbers of boias-frias in Brazil have risen with the growth of casual employment in the agricultural sector. Generally they reside on the outskirts of towns in slum neighbourhoods but depend for their survival on rural employment outside the urban area (SPINDEL, 1985). As in Guanacaste, boias-@as usually attend morning auctions for work-normally in agriculture or construction-and are transported to their destination by truck (STANDING, 1985, p. 2). These workers, however, may be better described commuters rather than migrants: migrant workers are those who actually live as well as work elsewhere on a temporary or seasonal basis. This latter category is highly applicable to Guanacaste where male migration to labour markets involving more than a day or two away from home at a time is often an absolutely critical component of survival for poor households. Virtually all male heads in Liberia, Cafias, and Santa Cruz had migrated from town at some point in search of work. During the first survey of 350 households in April-May 1989, men in 13% (32) of households headed by couples were away working in other parts of the country. Of this group of absentee male heads, 68.8% were working on farms, 21.9% in towns, and 9% on the coast, and were spread over six of Costa Rica’s seven provinces with just over half working in other parts of Guanacaste (returning home for a brief visit only on a fortnightly or monthly basis), 15.6% in Alajuela, 12.5% in Limdn, 9.3% in Puntarenas, 3.1% in Heredia, and 3.1% in San Jose. Most of the agricultural workers were in Limon employed on banana plantations, or in Alajuela, Puntarenas, and southern Guanacaste in land clearance (for crops and pasture). Those in towns were mainly in construction and commerce, whilst fishing occupied those in coastal areas. The majority (56%) had been away from home for less than 2 months, 12.2% for 2-3 months, 13.8% for 3-12 months, and 18% for over a year. A re-survey of 70 households in July indicated

246 that the overall proportion of male heads away working had approximately doubled. While adult men figure by far the most prominently as temporary migrants to external labour markets, outmigration of sons and daughters is also important to the welfare of Guanacasteco households. Sons tend to follow in their fathers’ footsteps and to migrate on a fairly seasonal or short-term basis to agricultural jobs. Daughters on the other hand tend to migrate for longer periods, often for a year at a time, and, even if they stay away much longer and/or semipermanently, continue to send remittances home to their mothers. Daughters tend to go to San Jose where wages for domestic service are between 3 and 4 times as high as in Guanacaste [see QUIRGZ et al. (1984, p. 69)]. This tends to highlight the fact that, even if adult women tied to the study centres through their reproductive labour have preferential access to regular work in the localities, the returns from conventional female employment in the areas are insufficient to justify the retention of teenage daughters. Indeed very few female household heads or spouses mentioned their own employment as a contributory reason for moving to Guanacasteco towns. Most identified that, had they been particularly concerned about finding work for themselves, they would have gone to San Jose. However, this was prevented by high costs of living in the capital, as well as the fact that domestic servants are often required to live in. Domestic service in San Jose is not therefore an option for mothers unable to leave their children with other people. Furthermore, and very importantly, while several women in Guanacaste work for money, for the most part men are still viewed as the primary income earners within family units, notwithstanding that they have to migrate elsewhere in the country for at least part of the year in order to remain in employment .

Links between Household Survival Strategies and Reproductive Motives in Rural-Urban Migration in Guanacaste

This basic division of responsibilities between adult men and women is critical in helping to explain the pre-eminence of reproductive factors in household migration decisions in Guanacaste. If ‘productive’ factors were to constitute the primary motivation, then households would probably have moved wholesale to areas where opportunities for regular work, particularly for men, were much more favourable.

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Instead, small towns in Guanacaste with a largely permanent female population appear to be in the process of becoming sites for the reproduction of labour power that in turn depend on temporary male out-migration to external labour markets. Why there should necessarily be a spatial separation of productive and reproductive activities in urban Guanacasteco households, and a trade-off in favour of reproductive imperatives for migration to the towns, is a complex issue for which a number of interpretations may be offered. At one level, it possibly indicates the constraints associated with permanent displacement of whole households to other areas of the country, an idea which has been mooted for the rural poor in parts of Southeast Asia [see, for example, FAN and STRETTON (1985)]. Reflecting the overall low levels of capital possessed by people in the province, many households in the survey stated that they could not afford to move to other towns in Costa Rica. This was usually a result of higher perceived costs of land and housing outside the region. Access to shelter in Guanacaste appears to be relatively easy compared with other parts of the country where greater demographic growth has forced up land prices and reduced tolerance to land invasions. In all three study centres, for example, the municipal authorities seem to have a reasonably permissive stance towards illegal occupation. In more centrallylocated towns such as San Jose, on the other hand, where growth of the built-up area in the past has encroached upon valuable coffee-growing land [see, for example, CARVAJAL (1983), CARVAJAL and VARGAS (1985)) and HALL (1985)], most invasions today are stamped out almost as soon as they emerge.‘l Another reason, in part related to the above and also noted in studies on migration elsewhere in the developing world, is that the spatial dispersal of household income-earners tends to play a role in minimising risk [see, for example, ARIZPE (1982), CHAPMAN and PROTHERO (1985)) FAN and STRETTON (1985)) ROBERTS (1985), and STANDING (1985)]. By decanting various family members into different labour markets around the country, Guanacasteco households are probably able to enjoy slightly greater economic security than if their members were to be exclusively reliant on employment in a single location. This is particularly relevant in light of the limited potential for regular work in Guanacaste’s towns. Some of the general literature on circular migration goes as far as to suggest that retaining a family home in a poor or marginal area while some members work

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elsewhere actually muximises the returns from productive activity. With reference to Southeast Asia, for example, where peasant households often send one or two members to the cities, STRE’ITON (1985, p. 229) suggests that: Under certain circumstances, the family wilI maxim&e earnings of the labourer who spends much of his working time in the city, whereas it will maxirnise its utility from consumption by spending most of its income in the village.

This latter point perhaps does not apply so much to Guanacasteco towns where, apart from housing, most other items of consumption such as foodstuffs, transport costs, and so on are not noticeably cheaper than in other parts of the country. Indeed, in some cases, lack of competition can actually make prices higher. Beyond this, we must also recognise that temporary workers are generally paid less than people with regular jobs. STANDING’s (1985, p. 34) suggestion that, in general, migrant labourers are an ‘extremely vulnerable group’ would appear to be reinforced by the Guanacaste data, which show that households depending for all or part of their income from remittances are in fact factionally poorer than households exclusively reliant on local earnings. Even leaving aside this last issue, there is no doubt that relatively easy access to housing in Guanacasteco towns, coupled with an on-going tradition of temporary labour migration, and the fact that towns have an advantage over rural areas in respect of services such as schools and medical amenities, make Liberia, Caiias, and Santa Cruz attractive locations for migrant households, despite their lack of work opportunities. None the less, it is still important to consider why people do not move elsewhere in Costa Rica where temporary labour migration could be practised with equal facility, and where urban services essential to the reproduction of household units such as education, health care, and so on are possibly even better. The main answer here would appear to revolve around the issues of familiarity with the region, and access to kin. Both these provide considerable economic and psychological assurance to people with a very vulnerable position in the labour market. Thinking back to the principal factors cited by people for moving to the towns, around 1 in 6 identified family reasons as most important, and 70% actually joined relatives when they moved to town. Quite apart from the fact that retaining roots in familiar territory where

247 contacts might have been established with a wide range of individuals and institutions, and where access to jobs may be fairly readily obtained though personal ties when they are available, the support provided by kin is absolutely vital. Several residents of Liberia, Caiias, and Santa Crux live in the same neighbourhoods as their relatives, with whom there is constant interaction for the purposes of assistance and co-operation. Networks of reciprocity and exchange embrace, among other things, loans of cash, food, labour, shelter, and job information and placements: women who need to go out to work, for example, will often leave a child with relatives; people temporarily without money though lack of employment or remittances go to eat with kinsfolk; people with their own small-scale businesses create posts for people without jobs and so on. While the significance of kinship networks in rural-urban migration has been widely acknowledged in other parts of Latin America such as Mexico [see, for example, ARIZPE (1978), KEMPER (1977), and LOMNITZ (197’7)], in Guanacaste their role is perhaps even more vital in light of the excessively precarious nature of local employment. This is particularly relevant for female members who not only are the main participants in kin-based networks, but also those most in need of them: the hardships of reliance on employment in distant labour markets tend to fall disproportionately on women whose remittances from men may lapse over time, or whose husbands themselves may never return. Having made the point that kinship links are one of the major reproductive factors involved in directing local rural-urban migration in Guanacaste, and that women are heavily involved in both these and reproductive aspects of family survival in general, it is useful to spend a little time considering the position of women left behind in the towns as members of ‘residual’ households.

Effects on Women of Spatial and Sexual Divisions of Household Labour

While the effects on women of male out-migration have been explored in-depth elsewhere [see CHANT (199lb)], it is important to note here that one major corollary of the spatial separation of men’s and women’s activities is that this basic pattern not only derives from sexual divisions of labour, but may also reinforce them. ARIZPE (1982, p. 22) for example, has suggested in her study of relay migration in Mexico that, in order to faciIitate a strategy of send-

248 ing various household members into a range of external labour markets at different times (during the year, over the course of the family life cycle and so on), households have to maintain large pools of labour. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to have large numbers of children, which in turn means that mothers have very limited mobility through repeated pregnancies and constant care of young children. Although birth-rates in Guanacaste are not especially high (in spite of a common practice for women to get pregnant by each new partner as a means of securing financial support), undoubtedly having children in itself, and being in a position of major responsibility for their upbringing, places a major constraint on women’s freedom of movement, as noted earlier in this paper. A further implication for women of the fusion of spatial and sexual divisions of labour in Guanacaste is that, located as they are in towns which offer only limited and low-status opportunities, they are unlikely to be sufficiently well-off that they can survive without male income. This inevitably reduces women’s potential autonomy and does little to challenge existing sexual divisions of labour. Indeed, although Guanacasteco women are popularly seen as strong individuals who view their spouses merely in terms of their capacity to generate economic resources, when partners fail so send remittances or to return at all, most women attach themselves fairly promptly to another man [see CHANT (1991b)l. This is generally not the case where women have more favourable access to urban employment: in parts of Latin America where local economies have high demand for female labour, women are much more likely to head their own households [see, for example, CHANT (1991a), FERNANDEZ-KELLY (1983), and SAFA (1981)]. Clearly Guanacaste has exceptions: women at later stages of the family life cycle, for example, who can draw upon the earnings of sons and daughters do not have the same need for male support. Moreover, a few women in the study centres are able to find reasonably well-paid work within the locality (in restaurants, for example) which again reduces the need to strike up emotional partnerships for economic ends. None the less, overall, women in Guanacasteco towns are often in a quite vulnerable position: not only are they vested with the major and frequently sole responsibility for the daily maintenance and reproduction of household members on the basis of generally tenuous remittances, but they are also heavily dependent upon men through lack of adequate local jobs.22 Over and above this, it is also important to take account of

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CONNELL’s (1984, p. 976) point deriving from his analysis of male out-migration in the South Pacific, that women left behind in reduced circumstances may end-up with even less status than they would do if their husbands were to stay. In other words, that the division between male mobility and female immobility may lead to greater widening of the ‘gendergap’ in resources, skills, experience, prestige, and so on. The issue in need of emphasis here, therefore, is that the dominance of reproductive factors in Guanacasteco household migration decisions on a long-term basis (in the sense of where to locate the residential/ domestic core of the household), while in themselves predicated on the assumption that women will remain in place to undertake essential domestic and childcare responsibilities, can also trap them in such a way as to make it very difficult to break free from the limitations and dependence associated with residence in a marginal area.

Conclusion

and Wider Implications

Given the principal conclusion that urbanisation in Guanacaste has occurred for reasons relating primarily to reproductive imperatives of household survival, and in turn that the spatial divisions of labour practised by Guanacaste families are closely intermeshed with gender divisions of labour, it now remains to examine some of the wider implications of this paper’s findings for studies of rural-urban migration in Latin America generally. The first main implication is that, in order to explain the increasingly differentiated nature of urban growth in Latin America, it is important to take account of gender. Gender is important not only at the level of its interaction with long-term urbanbound migration streams, but also at the level of short-term mobility. Incorporation of perspectives on both these issues has certainly been useful in explaining the otherwise rather puzzling phenomenon of urban expansion in an area characterised by negligible economic growth and diversification. In the present case, it is concluded that women’s association with household reproduction and the maintenance of kin-based networks of reciprocity provides a major rationale for urbanisation in a peripheral region. A second, and related, implication is that assump-

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tions about why women move to Latin American towns and cities need perhaps to be re-evaluated in order to encompass a greater range of flexibility in form and motive. As stated earlier in this paper, the predominance of women in rural-urban migration flows-whether of a permanent or temporary nature-is usually associated with the lack of economic opportunities for women in rural areas of the continent and the relative abundance of employment in towns. These kinds of ideas have emerged from within a dominant neo-classical approach to ruralurban migration which, in terms of analysing women’s moves at least, would not appear particularly satisfactory. The kinds of dangers embedded in the conventional neo-classical perspective include the fact that: (a) women are assumed to be ‘independent’ movers, (b) that they are ‘free’ to undertake migration, and (c) that work will be the main factor influencing their decision. While it is true to some extent that moving to towns in Guanacaste marginally enhances women’s chances of employment compared to rural areas, we have also seen that this employment is not usually sufficiently well-paid as to support a family. Moreover, women have little choice in undertaking any further (temporary) migration associated with work, primarily because their main responsibilities are aligned with the reproductive functions of household units and because there may be little scope for independent decision making. The findings of the present study, therefore, in addition to underlining the necessity for giving much greater attention to the relative numbers of men and women in rural-urban and temporary labour migration, would also seem to call for new approaches to gender selectivity in Latin America migration itself. One potentially appropriate framework here is the ‘household strategies approach’ proposed by RADCLIFFE (1991) whereby women’s mobility must be conceived within the context of household decisions about who will migrate and who will stay. Integral to the household strategies framework are the ways in which social and economic factors associated with gender ideologies and divisions of labour influence the distribution of men and women in different activities across space and through time (RADCLIFFE, 1991). The household strategies approach calls for a much more detailed investigation of migrant households and their survival strategies in both rural and urban areas than has hitherto been the case in more macrolevel studies of urbanisation. Notwithstanding the difficulties attached to the attempt to reconcile aggregate statistical analyses with micro-level case studies in the scope of single projects, greater interchange

between researchers working at different scales and in different places, not to mention planners and policy makers, would appear to be essential if the increasing complexity of urbanisation in different parts of Latin America is to be better understood.23

Notes This article is based on fieldwork carried out in Costa Rica between March and August 1989 under the auspices of a research project entitled ‘Gender, Migration and Regional Development in Costa Rica’ funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, U.K. (ESRC) (Award No. ROOO231151). The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the ESRC for this project, and would also like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for a Social Science Small Grants Award for a preliminary visit to the country in 1987. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium ‘Urban Development and Housing in Latin America’ held at the annual conference of the Society of Latin American Studies, Jesus College, Oxford, 31 March1 April 1990. Guanacaste province is often referred to as the ‘Chorotega Region’. The latter is a planning term which originated in 1978 when OFIPLAN (the Office of Planning, now MIDEPLAN, Ministry of Planning) developed a new division of the country’s six planning regions. The ‘Regidn Chorotega’ replaced what was formerly (1975) designated the ‘North Pacific’ region (HAIL, 1985). In 1978 Chorotega covered the entire province of Guanacaste plus the canton of Upala belonging to AlajueIa province on the eastern side of the provincial boundary, and the southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula which belongs to Puntarenas. However, since 1988 Chorotega has only been used to describe Guanacaste itself. A questionnaire-based interview survey of 350 households was carried out in three Guanacasteco towns: Liberia, Caiias, and Santa Cruz. Interviewing (in two low-income settlements in each town) was carried out in two stages. During the first stage of the survey (April-May) questionnaire interviews were held with 350 households to gather basic quantitative socioeconomic data relating to migration, household membership, employment characteristics, and so on. One-fifth of these households were then re-interviewed during a second questionnaire survey in July to record changes in household composition, employment, and income between the two periods. These 70 households were also interviewed in-depth with a semi-structured interview format aimed at gleaning information of a more qualitative nature. Valuable assistance in the first stage of the questionnaire survey was provided by Cathy McIlwaine and Sarah Bradshaw to whom the author is indebted for consistent hard work and commitment. The same applies to Nandini Dasgupta who as fuII-time research assistant on the project in the U.K. carried out the bulk of the computer analysis on the interview survey data. Notwithstanding that production and reproduction form part and parcel of a continuwn of activities

250

5.

6. 7.

8,

9.

10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

Geoforum/Volume necessary for the survival of household units, ‘production’ is defined here as activities which directly generate income, and ‘reproduction’ as unwaged, predominantly domestic-based activities which physically and socially reproduce household members, transform income into elements of consumption, and interact with community-level social services such as education and health care to cater for the basic welfare needs of individuals and families [see BRYDON and CHANT (1989, pp. lo-12)]. Although not directly related to urbanisation in peripheral regions, RADCLIFFE’s (1991) work on peasant migration in the Calca region of the Peruvian Andes argues that gender (particularly as it relates to internal divisions within poor households) is a major conceptual tool for understanding the allocation of family labour and the selectivity of migration flows. While Radcliffe’s case study area is characterised by different kinds of out-migration to those in the present paper, the basic tenets of her argument are highly relevant. Radcliffe’s article should also be consulted for its useful up-to-date review of approaches to labour migration. Annual growth rates in agriculture in the same period were 4.2% (1965-1980) and 2.5% (1980-1988). In 1988 per capita debt in Costa Rica was $1678 U.S. The total debt in the same year was $4.5 billion U.S. (WORLD BANK, 1990). Urban growth rates in Costa Rica are calculated on the basis of administrative territorial criteria. At a national level, Costa Rica is divided into seven provinces which are in turn subdivided into 81 cantons and over 400 districts. ‘Urban’ areas are defined for census purposes as those corresponding to the administrative centres of the country’s cantons. This definition generally includes part or all of the first (core urban) district and other adjacent areas demarcated by physical and functional criteria such as streets, electric light, urban services, and so on. ‘Rural’ areas are those falling outside the above definition of urban areas, and include ‘urban peripheral’ zones not contiguous with the built-up area of towns and cities, ‘rural concentrated’ areas (with a minimum of 50 dwellings), and ‘rural dispersed’ areas with the lowest population densities. The national population at the time was just under 2.4 million. The total population of Guanacaste in 1988 was 229,826 inhabitants (MIDEPLAN, 1989). This figure refers to the growth of the district of Liberia, which broadly corresponds with the urban area of the canton. For census purposes an area’s inhabitants are defined as those whose usual dwelling place is in that area and who do not normally spend more than 6 months of the year away. The 1984 Costa Rican Census was carried out on 10 June, a time of year when many male residents of Guanacasteco towns are likely to be away working in other parts of the country, but have been recorded none the less as inhabitants of the towns. According to the municipal survey of Cadas in 1988, the population of the town was estimated to be 17,000, and that of the canton 21,000. The high census figures for primary-sector employment may result in part from the fact that Calias district and Carias canton are’ one and the same. Since there is no

22 Number

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distinction made for census purposes between ‘rural and ‘urban’ parts of the entity, the significance of agricultural employment among the population of the town itself may be somewhat inflated. None the less, figures from the author’s survey on the occupations of male household heads reveal that agriculture is the largest single employer of men, occupying over onethird of those with local employment in April-May 1989. 15. Information from Ing. Mario Berrocal, Superintendente de la Divisi6n Agrfcola, Hacienda Taboga, Cafias, Guanacaste (July 1989). 16. ‘Women household heads’ refer to those women who head their own household on a de jure or de facto basis. De jure women household heads are defined as those who have no attachment to a man and are consequently not receiving any financial support from a male partner. These women may be unmarried, separated, divorced, or widowed. De facto women household heads on the other hand are those who are attached to a man, but their partners are temporarily away, usually working. De facto women household heads normally receive remittances from their menfolk. See also YOUSSEF and HETLER (1983, p. 232) for more elaborate discussions of variations in, and terminology for, female household headship. 17. Nicaraguans have a long history of migration into Costa Rica, particularly Guanacaste and the Nicoya peninsula, as short-term workers in the harvest of crops such as sugar cane and cotton with large demands for manual labour. However, numbers of Nicaraguans moving into Costa Rica on a longer-term basis for reasons associated with political and economic strife both before and during the Sandinista regime rose markedly during the 1970s and 1980s [see, for example, LUNG0 (1986)]. Since many migrants entered the country illegally, it has been difficult to establish exactly how many reside in Costa Rica. In the mid1980s estimates suggested there were around 25,00030,000 foreign immigrants in the country. Around 85% of these were Nicaraguan, the rest being constituted mainly by Salvadoreans, Guatemalans, and Cubans (VEGA, 1986). During this time, only one-fifth of immigrants were living in formal refugee camps, and only around one-third had official ‘refugee status’ [see, for example, COT0 MARTEN (1987), and RAMfREZ BOZA (1987)]. More recently, the demise of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua has brought calls for the repatriation of the approximately 50,000 nationals estimated to be in the country in 1990, although it is difficult to predict the numbers who will actually return (La Nacidn, 22 May 1990, p. 4A). As far as Guanacaste itself is concerned, Nicaraguans have traditionally preferred to live in the more northern towns of Liberia and Carias in order to maintain close contact with relatives on the border. In 1989 it appeared that the vast bulk of Nicaraguans in these towns were ‘economic migrants’ rather than ‘political refugees’, and only a fraction had formal refugee status. In the questionnaire survey, the adult woman was Nicaraguan in 34 households out of a total of 150 (22.6%) in Liberia, and 22 out of 120 (18.3%) in Carias. 18. Although the term ‘husband’ is used here, in reality less

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20.

21.

22.

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than one-third (30.9%) of women in the survey were legally married. Most are in consensual/common-law unions (‘uniones lib&) where partners are referred to as ‘compafieros’ (literally ‘companions’) rather than ‘esposos’ or ‘maridos’ (husbands) [see CHANT (1991b)l. Unlike many developing countries, Costa Rica has a fairly high expenditure on social services. In addltion to housing programmes, education, and health care, there is also a fairly comprehensive social security system whereby benefits are granted to individuals in the form of pensions, child allowances, and so on. Despite cut-backs in public expenditure in the 198Os, investment in the social sector has been argued to have provided an important cushion for low-income families during the economic crisis. For a comprehensive review of social policies in Costa Rica in the 1970s and 198Os, see SOJO (1989). Of particular interest in the present study is that these social security payments undoubtedly help to subsidise the costs of survival in a region afflicted by extreme poverty and unemployment , which in itself contributes to understanding why people have been able to move to towns lacking regular work opportunities. ‘Bout-fria’ literally means ‘cold rations’. The term is used mainly in south and south-eastern Brazil, and alludes to the fact that such workers often have to eat their meals cold [see SPINDEL (1985, p. 335)]. Invasions on valuable land on the outskirts of San Jose are increasingly being removed within a very short space of time. For example, in August 1989 the authorities ordered and undertook the eviction of 320 families who had squatted for only 22 days on the side of a road leading from Hatillo Church in the south-west of San Jose. Interestingly the origins of these families included people not only from the Metropolitan Area but also Puriscal, San Carlos, and Guanacaste. Their reasons for squatting were the high costs of rent in the capital (around 50% of the minimum wage). However, in the meantime they were allowed to reassemble their makeshift dwellings in another nearby location pending discussions with the Deputy Housing Minister (La Nacibn, 6 August 1989, p. 10A). Earlier evictions in the San Jose Metropolitan Area in 1989 included that of 500 families from farmland in San Juan de Dios de Desamparados (La Nucion, 5 April 1989, p. 8A), and 122 families from land belonging to the Institute of Alcohol and Drug Addiction in Tirrases (La Nucion, 31 March 1989, p. 17A). For a more general review of the interrelationships between land markets and access to shelter in Latin American cities see GILBERT and WARD (1985). Any avenue out of this current scenario will probably require major public intervention, particularly in respect of attempts to iron out regional disparities in the Costa Rican space economy. One such route is obviously to invest more in labour-intensive productive activity within Guanacaste itself, a notion gradually acquiring greater currency and support from two major public bodies, the National Planning Ministry [MIDEPLAN (Ministerio de Planificacidn National)] and Guanacaste’s own Regional Development Council (Consejo Regional de1 Desarrollo), whose principal objectives are to diversify agriculture and to encourage

the development of tourism on the coast and in certain inland areas around national parks such as Santa Rosa in the far north of the province. Tourism in particular often generates a high demand for female,labour [see, for example, CHANT (1991a)], which in turn may reduce women’s reliance on men’s earnings in external labour markets, as well as stimulating further pockets of urbanisation and investment within the region. 23. The need to combine both macro- and micro-level perspectives on migration -has also been argued by CHAPMAN (1985) in his review of population mobility in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

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