How many colombians live in the usa

Cali, Cartagena, and Buenaventura have particularly large Afro-Colombian populations. In the Americas, Colombia has the third highest number of citizens of African origin, behind Brazil and the United States. While Colombia has not attracted large numbers of immigrants, there have been periods in which the country opened its doors to newcomers.

In the early 20th century, immigrants from the Middle East, specifically from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine arrived, settling mostly along the Caribbean Coast, especially in the cities of Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Cartagena, and Maicao in La Guajira.

From to , a sizable number of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews immigrated. Colombia has not had a large immigration from Asia, although in the early 20th century there was a small immigration of Japanese to the Cali area. Idyllic colonial towns and fast-paced cities, jaw-dropping mountains and stunning beaches: see it all with Moon Travel Guides. Get recommended reads, deals, and more from Hachette Get recommended reads, deals, and more from Hachette Sign Up.

It can help them make their decision based on full and unbiased knowledge- something they usually lack. Such is the case of a potential emigrant who decides to emigrate or not without having an idea of his or her chances of success in the country to which he or she intends to migrate, since he or she does not know why a migrant may eventually decide to come back home. This document adopts standard methodology on the theory of evaluation of social programs and has selected a model that enables us to establish the main factors which determine the decision to stay in the United States on the part of Colombian migrants living there.

In particular, our exercise shows that those who are university graduates or post-graduates have a S than those with secondary education or less. The results of this model provide evidence that those Colombian migrants who left the United States and returned to Colombia between the years and are, on average, less well- educated than those who decided to stay in the U.

This pattern has contributed to intensifying the selection process, which characterized the initial migratory influx, i. In order to better understand what motivates migrants to remain in the United States, we proceed to explore the relation which exists between the migrants' levels of education and the level of complexity of the tasks which these same migrants find in their jobs or places of employment.

To carry out this exercise, we used the classification of occupations established by Autor, Levy and Murnane The results reveal that in the case of Colombia, the migrants' levels of education are closely linked to the level of qualification required of them for the work they do in the United States, from which we deduce that the popular belief that Colombian professionals who work in the United States are employed in jobs that require little qualification would seem to be no more than a myth.

The evidence provided in this article, along with the results of previous studies, suggests that the Colombian migrants' option to remain in the United States is more a matter of being capable of making that decision, rather than simply wanting to do so. Those who stay, because they prefer to do so, would seem to be the ones who have managed to be better assimilated in the United States, and that is generally related to their degree of qualification which enables them to remain in their country of adoption while enjoying an adequate lifestyle.

In what follows, we will proceed to describe some elements of the background on this subject before presenting, in stylized form, the main characteristics of Colombian immigrants' cases. Later, we describe the methodology employed to estimate the factors which determine Colombians' decision to return, and present and discuss the results of these estimates. Following this, we carry out an exercise intended to determine the relation between educational levels and qualification for the migrants' tasks in their adopted country, and finally, we present some conclusions.

At the present time, the developed countries have shown a growing interest in promoting the return of migrants to their home countries. This concern is also on the agenda of several medium income countries from which the migrants have originally come -India, China, Brazil-, as well as Colombia.

Thanks to experience gained during their period of migration, the returnees will have acquired general and specific skills which can contribute to the development of their home countries. There is special interest in drawing back the highest qualified citizens that had decided to migrate, -thus having given rise to the so-called "brain drain"-. Some countries are interested in capitalizing on the abilities which such individuals have developed during their time in developed countries, and want to take advantage of the benefits of what they now call "brain gain".

One such example is India:. Between and when the economy was sluggish , 35 per cent of the nation's most promising graduates moved abroad … but from onwards the period when India's GDP began to soar only 16 per cent chose to leave.

The Guardian, , observed on April 4, Several theories exist on the reasons that lead migrants to return home, as well as on other matters, such as the profile of the returnees, and the moment when they return, Cassarino sums up several of the theories expounded on up to now; among which, we find the approximations of the Neo-classical School of Economics, NE the New Economy on Labor Migration NELM , Structural Approximation, Transnationalism and the "Social Networks" theory.

According to the NE approximation, those who migrate do so, for an indefinite period of time, as a life project. In this sense, the return home will occur, only, as the consequence of a failed migratory experience. On the other hand, NELM suggests that the decision to return home is a logical step in a previously calculated strategy, since it assumes a return to be the culmination of a migration project.

Structural Approximation suggests that to analyze a migrant's return, we should bear in mind not only his or her personal experience, but also the social and institutional factors that are present in his or her home country.

Thus, the decision to return is also a question of context Cassarino, , especially the economic and social context of the home country and that of the country to which he or she had decided to migrate.

For Transnationalism, the return home is not necessarily permanent. It occurs once the individual has obtained sufficient resources to guarantee the sustenance of his or her family, and when the conditions of the home country are favorable. Later, the individual will look for a way to return to the country to which he she migrated in the first place in order to take advantage of the relationships which he she has created there. Thus there will be a permanent migratory flux between the home country and the country in which he or she has established different ties.

Finally, the "Social Network" theory sees the returnees as migrants who establish strong ties in other countries. However, what this focus considers relevant are those relationships which will contribute to their future initiatives or projects in their home countries. In this sense, the decision to return is programmed, and depends on the economic and social ties which the migrant has managed to establish to support his her projects in the home country.

The United States Bureau of the Census, based on previous studies by Warren and Peck and Warren and Passel , estimates that the exodus of international migrants from the United States is, in the Latin American region, about , people per annum. Borjas and Bratsberg estimated the rate of emigration out-migration of foreigners leaving the United States at approximately In the case of Colombia, That is to say, during the period , approximately Borjas and Bratsberg also showed that when comparison is made with migrants from countries from Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Colombians are one of the groups with the greatest number of returnees surpassed only by Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Borjas and Bratsberg found evidence that shows that the decision to return home intensifies the selection which characterized the initial migratory influx.

This means that in those countries where the initial migration was brought about by a "positive selection" where the emigrants were on average better -educated- as is the case for Colombia , they observed that those migrants who returned were on average the less well- educated.

And the opposite also occurs: in those countries where the migratory flux was characterized by a negative selection, they found that the migrants who returned were, on average, better- educated. Governments of countries with a high rate of emigration are interested in finding out whether or not part of the human capital which left the country in earlier periods can be reintegrated into the country's society and so, at least to some extent, turn back the "brain drain" 3. Besides, qualified migrants are able to absorb technologies which in many cases are intangible and skills that can be used to the advantage of their country of origin.

This process, designed to revert the "brain drain", can enable those who have migrated to other countries to generate external values for their home countries and makes up part of what is known as the "brain gain". Now, all depends on whether what exists is positive selection or, the contrary, negative selection Borjas and Bratsberg, , If the selection is positive, then the returnees will be lower, on average, among the less educated, which means that the effects of the "brain gain" will not be an advantage for the home country, but rather the "brain drain" effect will be augmented.

If, on the other hand, the selection is negative, then the returnees will be, on average, the best educated among the migrants, and that will probably lead to a "brain gain" and the consequent advantage to the home country to which the migrant has returned, reverting to some extent the "brain drain" process. In , the region which had the greatest flow of international migrants was Europe, with The principal receiver countries for international migrants are the United States, the Russian Federation, Germany, the Ukraine and France.

Now, we want to answer some general questions that will allow us to draw our baseline: 1 How many Colombians are living abroad? Regarding the number of Colombians living abroad. Over this entire period, a total of 1.

The authors quote figures from Colombia's Foreign Affairs Ministry based on population censuses carried out in different countries which reveal that, in the year , the total number of Colombians living in the countries surveyed was 1. In the same year, other relevant destinations for Colombians were Ecuador 51, people in , Panama 21, , Canada 18, , Italy 16, France 13, and the United Kingdom 12, , among others.

Also, according to the census taken in Colombia in , 3. As mentioned above. In , there were approximately , Colombians in the U. A simple estimate would enable us to accept as reasonable a figure somewhere between the calculations of the Foreign Affairs Ministry and those of Gaviria : i the Colombian population as represented in the U. Census taken in showed that some , Colombians had been living in the United States for at least ten years; ii between the years and , approximately 62, Colombians left the United States, in which case, if a similar rate of influx of Colombians occurred between the years and , over that ten-year period some , Colombians had back arrived in the country see table 1.

Supposing this to be correct, the , Colombians registered in the U. Census did not take into account a further , Colombians, or thereabouts, giving a grand total of , Colombians in the U. If the Colombian population in the United States increased at an annual rate of 5. As shown in Table 1 , Appendix , based on figures from U.

The countries with the highest growth rate of immigrants in the U. The number of Colombian immigrants increases at a medium rate in comparison with that of other Latin American countries. In the Colombian case, one of the most notable facts related to the overall profile of the resident population in the United States is that Colombians in the U.

The authors consider this result indicative of the lower socioeconomic status of the families whose members have migrated to Spain, when compared to those who have migrated to the U. In general terms, the qualifications of the average Colombian who migrates to the United States are more likely to be higher than those of the average Colombian who stays at home.

That is to say, Colombia is a net exporter of skilled people; in particular, Medina and Posso found that Colombia is a net exporter of skilled individuals -since the net exportation of skilled people is 5. Also, they showed that Brazil, Argentina and Chile are net importers see Graph 1. This implies that, at least at some particular moment, there existed what Borjas and Borjas would call "positive selection", in accordance with the fact that those who leave a country are better- educated.

Despite this, it is equally important to know whether those Colombians who return home from abroad are more or less well- educated than those who remain in their adopted countries. If we establish that not only are the Colombian emigrants better -educated, but also that they are the ones who will probably remain abroad and not return, and that their absence from Colombia is not compensated by the entry of foreigners into Colombia, then we will have evidence to show that the country has been experiencing an overall loss of qualified personnel -the so-called "brain drain"-.

We might validly wonder whether or not a higher degree of education has contributed to the fact that well- educated migrants enjoy a higher standard of living in their adopted country, and to what extent that has determined their decision to stay abroad.

This query arises from the abundant anecdotes and stories told by the numerous professionals who have migrated to the United States and who are employed in jobs for which their academic qualifications are not required. The following press release illustrates the point:. According to the most recent official census of New York City, of a total of , Colombian workers, both legal and illegal, 3, are at present engaged in subsistence employment, working in jobs that have nothing to do with their original professions in Colombia.

The number has increased due to the constant influx of professionals from Colombia entering the United States … and according to a recent report by the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development entitled International Migration Perspective , an average of And the majority of them are here in New York 6.

Let us begin by reporting the distribution of the overall human capital in the United States. For the year , the OECD estimated that The countries with the greatest proportion of people, with at least complete university level education, are India, the Russian Federation, Iran and Taiwan. However, by the countries with the greatest number of well qualified people who were migrating were India 9. Colombia participates with 1.

To determine what jobs are being done by foreigners working in the United States. ALM, who defined the levels of intensity of each kind of employment in five kinds of tasks -two of which are analytical that is, they require analysis and quantitative abilities -, two are routine that is, they require precision and can often by computerized , and one is manual not able to be computerized 8. Table 3, in the Appendix, shows the principal areas in which foreigners in the United States are working 9.

Also, as shown earlier, these tend to be the countries with the greatest number of qualified personnel who have migrated. However, not all countries tell the same story. In the mid 70s, migration flows to the US included unskilled workers and middle-class entrepreneurs. The second significant migration wave took place in the s, mainly to Venezuela due to its economic boom.

In the s, migrants turned to other destinations, with Spain the preferred choice as increased enforcement made it more difficult to enter the US and Venezuela. Keeping pace with migration, remittances from Colombian migrants abroad steadily increased over the past decade. In , remittances dropped by The IOM profile also reveals a large percentage of highly skilled Colombians living overseas, which surpasses that of Argentinian and Brazilian migrants.