ABSTRACT
Introduction Migration (see Box 7.1) is a part of everyone's life cycle. Children migrate with their parents, or on their own to be educated, on marriage and when seeking a living. Population movements have always been part of Latin American urban and rural life: there is little evidence that overall mobility changed greatly either during the colonial period or in the present century. What merits special attention is the composition and direction of migration. Migration at any given moment mirrors stresses in households, in society in general and in different regions.
