ABSTRACT
After four and a half centuries of being a net extra-regional immigration region, South America experienced a significant turn toward border migration, extra-regional emigration, and—very recently—intraregional long-distance migration. This chapter reviews the period 1970–2020, focusing on international migration's intensity, the directionality of the flows, the demographic characteristics of migrants, and the various drivers of the region's human mobility. We combine census data for the period 1970–2010 with household surveys, census data, and figures on the monthly number of Facebook users from 2015 to 2020 to cover the entire period under review. Additionally, we discuss the qualitative changes that took place over this fifty-year span, such as the participation of women in international migration; skilled migration; drivers of mobility; interactions between internal migration, displacement, and international migration; and the recent increase of forced migration.
