By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 7 2002 (IPS)

The emigration of middle-class Argentines, which quietly picked up speed over the past two years, has mushroomed in the last two months into the greatest exodus in the history of this Southern Cone country.

Marta Godoy, a phonoaudiologist, and her husband, a doctor, have three grown children. “I have never seen him cry like that,” Godoy told IPS, recalling her husband’s reaction to the departure of their son and one of their daughters to Spain. Their youngest daughter is also getting ready to leave, and they plan to follow.

The couple’s son, the eldest, is a sociologist who was offered a contract to work in Madrid. His wife, a graphic designer, had no trouble finding a job once they got there. Shortly after, their son-in-law, also a professional, decided to try his luck, and then sent home for his wife.

The main difference between the huge wave of Italian and Spanish immigrants who came to Argentina in the first half of the 20th century and today’s outflow of Argentines is educational level. While many of the immigrants from southern Europe had little or no schooling, most of the Argentines who are leaving today have graduated from high school or gone to college.

The magnitude of the exodus was highlighted in a report by the Argentine office of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). The number of emigrants who have left over the past two years is equivalent to the total number of people who have moved abroad since the 1940s.

The main reasons so many people are anxious to leave Latin America’s third largest economy are the financial meltdown and the soaring unemployment. However, many of those who leave have work here, but do not want to live in constant fear of losing their jobs, their life savings or their future pensions, or of finding themselves in a dire situation in case of illness or other emergency.

But while the brain drain has been growing since late 1999, the number of people leaving has dramatically increased since the crisis came to a peak in December.

On Dec 3, the government limited cash withdrawals to stem a run on the banks, and 17 days later, president Fernando de la Rúa resigned in the midst of a generalised social and political collapse.

Since then, institutional and economic uncertainty has reigned, and the number of Argentines applying for Spanish or Italian nationality has tripled, according to the consulates of Spain and Italy.

The overwhelming majority of middle-class Argentines are descendants of European – basically Italian and Spanish – immigrants who came to this South American country in waves, starting in the late 19th century, when it was one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

Many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those immigrants are now applying for Spanish or Italian citizenship, in order to obtain passports.

Demographers and historians agree that this is the biggest exodus in the history of this country – which has traditionally been on the receiving end of migratory flows – and that those leaving are mainly members of the middle-class: professionals, small business owners, skilled workers, retirees and students.

The problem is that Argentina’s nearly four-year recession has turned into a full-fledged depression, with no solution in sight. Unemployment has climbed above 23 percent, and around 20 percent of the economically active population is under-employed, a category referring to people who would like more work, but cannot find any.

In January, the number of Argentines flying out of the Buenos Aires international airport was four times higher than the January 2001 total, according to Migration Office statistics. The chief destinations were Spain, Italy and the United States.

In the 1990s, the difference between the number of Argentines leaving the country and those who returned indicated that around 5,000 a year settled overseas. In 1999, when the recession began, that number rose to 8,000, and by 2000, the number of people who did not return had soared to nearly 90,000.

The total dipped slightly in 2001, due to the Sep 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which curbed global air traffic flows.

But in the past two months, the number of departures has risen sharply as a consequence of the deepening economic and social crisis.

Biologist Ruth Tracktenberg and her physicist husband have jobs and savings, but they plan to leave the country if the economy remains unstable. “I have to think about my kids, and about what I would do if I lost my job,” she told IPS.

Her husband Pablo Mendel has two brothers, both of them architects, living in Europe, one in Switzerland and the other in Spain. If he also decides to go overseas, his parents will seriously consider the possibility of leaving the country where they were born, to return to the continent from which their ancestors emigrated, fleeing war and hunger.

The phenomenon of emigration has begun to form an intrinsic part of youth culture in this country of 36 million. The possibility of going somewhere, anywhere, has become an increasingly frequent subject of conversation among adolescents and young adults, who believe it does not make sense to start working towards a university degree, and who prefer to try their luck elsewhere.

Skilled workers are also trying to find opportunities abroad. Taxi driver Ricardo Sosa told IPS that he was moving to Italy in June, where his cousin owns a hotel. According to his plans, he will then send home for his wife – a podiatrist – and their two children, a physical education teacher and a high school student.

“My mother is devastated,” said the taxi driver, who asks his passengers to tell him anything they know about Italy. “She’s Italian, and she’s staying here, but I told her that as soon as I can, I’ll bring her over with us. But of course, she buried my father here, and doesn’t want to leave.”

Experts say that neither the waves of political exile triggered by Argentina’s dictatorships nor the four-digit hyperinflation that made life so difficult between 1989 and 1991 – which also sparked brain drain – led to an exodus like today’s, which seems to have no end, although the most optimistic believe they will one day return.

Radio and TV programmes debate the merits of leaving or staying, the boom in emigration is the frequent focus of front page newspaper and magazine articles, and the issue has become a staple of conversation in social reunions and family gatherings.

Gustavo Fernández, an engineer, and his wife, a psychologist, have two children and a “Plan B”, as they have dubbed what started out as a vague possibility and has gradually become a firm plan. They have completed all the paperwork to go to Canada, in case Fernández loses his job.

“I would like to try it out for a few years, and then come back,” Fernández commented to IPS. His wife, however, sounded more realistic, and also sadder. “I believe that if I leave at age 40, it won’t be for a short time,” she said.

Teary-eyed airport farewells have become routine as more and more houses are left empty. People interested in purchasing real estate frequently find offers of houses or apartments being sold by people who are in a hurry to be gone.

Like refugees fleeing a country at war or devastated by a natural disaster, they leave behind their furniture and household appliances.

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