ABSTRACT
The importance of industrialization in shaping the economy and society of underdeveloped countries must be set within a context in which a large proportion of the population still works in agriculture and lives in small towns and rural villages. The agrarian structures of Latin America have, perhaps, been more deeply affected by external political and economic forces, and for a longer period, than have those of most underdeveloped areas, with the result that village-level society has been fragmented, social and economic relationships individualized and a labour supply made available for capitalist expansion. The overall trend in cityward migration until the 1970s is increasingly to concentrate populations in the large cities of Latin America. In the 1980s, the patterns of migration appeared to have changed and become less centripetal in nature. Rural-urban migration lessened in importance, while inter-urban migration and, in some countries, international migration gained in importance.
