Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

207). Migrants, and their children, routinely died during the harvest and back home, from
pesticide poisoning, malaria, and other waterborne pathogens from unsanitary living conditions.
Due to increasing poverty and landlessness and despite the poor conditions, migrant workers
continued to meet the employment demands of the agricultural sector. During the 1960s and
1970s the migration of 400,000 to 1,000,000 laborers per annum represented a movement of
approximately 8%-25% of the population in 1960s and 7%-17% of the population in the 1970s.
The total amount of seasonal migration had increased significantly from the earlier periods
marked by forced seasonal migration. Over the same time period the number of permanent
laborers, those individuals living and working on plantations, dropped from 80,000 to 74,000
despite an increase in total population.
An indicator signifying lifetime migration or long-term migration could be measured in
part by the rate of urbanization. Urbanization in Guatemala had consistently increased since the
1950s. Most urbanization occurred as laborers migrated to Guatemala City. Migrants often set
up residence in the shanty towns located minutes outside of Guatemala City. The urbanization
rates in Guatemala were 25% in 1950, 33.6% in 1960, 35% in 1970, 37.4% in 1980, 39.4% in
1990 and 42% in 1995. Urbanization continued to increase despite the high levels of
unemployment, underemployment, and participation in the informal sector. Approximately “56
percent to 70 percent of the total urban population” in Guatemala City was unemployed or
underemployed (Jonas, 1991, 64). The high levels of unemployment and underemployment,
beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1990s, were due to the levels of urban growth
rates greatly outpacing urban employment opportunities; “the employable population increased
seven times faster than the number of urban employed” (Jonas, 1991, 65).
Patterns of intrastate migration show long-term movement away from the east, west, and
north central regions. According to Guatemala’s 1981 national census the east region lost
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