Migration and the Urban Informal Sector in Colombia

Rural-urban migration has been an important determinant of the urbanization process in Colombia. Although migration flows have been declining and they explain less of urban population growth, the recent intensification of armed conflict in the country is again pushing rural population to urban centers. Migration flows can explain most of the increase of the urban labor supply, which along with a decreasing labor demand, brought by the crisis of the 1990's, has produced an increasing unemployment rate and deterioration in the quality of employment (unemployment and informal sector). This paper seeks to address two main questions. First, it looks for changes in the migrant profile from 1984 to 1992 and 2000. Second, the paper identifies, for year 2000, if migration status is one of the key determinants of working in the informal sector. Empirical findings confirm that migration profile has changed, especially from 1992 to 2000, towards a higher participation of rural flows and higher participation of men probably as a consequence of intensification of armed conflict. Results also indicate that migration condition has a large impact on the probability of being employed in the informal sector – under any definition usedor being unemployed, especially for women. Results suggest a strong assimilation process in the urban labor market for female migrants, but a weak process for male migrants. The analyses carried out here provide some lights on three dimensions for the relation between migration and informal labor markets: first, data quality; second, conceptualization of the informal sector; and third, evidence to facilitate a successful insertion of migrants in the labor market. Paper prepared for Conference on African Migration in Comparative Perspective, Johannesburg, South Africa, 4-7 June, 2003.