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CLARIN

Spain-Latin America Migration: A Two-Way Track

Hundreds of thousands have left Spain, until recently a land of plenty with a booming real estate sector, to seek work abroad. American countries are favored destinations, even if recession is now raising its ugly head there.

In Buenos Aires. Need a return ticket?
In Buenos Aires. Need a return ticket?

BUENOS AIRES — More than five years of recession in Spain have sent thousands of Spaniards migrating in search of jobs across the world. Latin America, with a shared language and cultural affinities, has been a favored destination. Spanish government figures show that the region received 65% of the 81,000 Spaniards who left their country in 2014.

About 10% of these were former migrants from Latin America who were nationalized in Spain after arriving in search of job. The economic tables turned at the end of the previous decade as Spaniards have sought work in countries like Ecuador, Peru and Argentina — which until recently had been sending them migrants.

There were times in the recent recession when despondency in Spain must have reminded many of the state of generalized poverty and melancholy that afflicted Spaniards in the 1940s and 1950s. Thousands also migrated then, or fled to countries like Mexico, Argentina and Venezuela, either to seek work or escape the regime of General Franco.

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In Madrid, Spain — Photo: Juanedc

Today Argentina, often cited as "the most European of the Latin American countries," is the favored destination in terms of numbers. About 423,000 Spaniards are registered as living there now, from a range of educational backgrounds.

But Estrella Sánchez of the Federation of Spanish Societies in Argentina, which brings together Spanish associations there may offer a hint of the tide turning again: "I would advise them not to come," she said. "This is not the moment to try to set up a new life here, even with university qualifications and everything. They come to try their luck and find the reality is difficult and often don't find work."

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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