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- While remittances break records and ease the economies of many countries in the region, millions of Latin American households are being reshaped around an absence that leaves social, educational, and emotional marks.
By José Luis Sampietro Saquicela
According to the United Nations, more than 43 million Latin Americans live outside their country of origin, nearly double the number at the beginning of the 1990s. This means that almost one in every seven migrants worldwide comes from Latin America and the Caribbean. Millions of people leave their countries in search of opportunities their economies cannot provide. From the United States to Europe, those who manage to settle abroad send money home and support their families. In economic terms, the phenomenon may even appear virtuous, as remittances have become one of the most important financial flows for the region.
According to the World Bank, Latin America and the Caribbean received more than 155 billion dollars in remittances in 2023, a record figure that continues to grow each year. In some cases, remittances account for more than 20 percent of national GDP. However, measuring migration solely in monetary terms is an incomplete way of understanding the phenomenon. Financial transfers sustain household consumption, but they do not replace the presence of those who have left. In many Latin American households, money arrives punctually every month, but daily life is reorganised around a permanent absence.
This transformation has given rise to what sociologists call transnational families—that is, family units spread across several countries that maintain their ties through technology and sporadic contact. Parents working on another continent while their children grow up with grandparents or uncles and aunts, couples who spend years apart, children who see their parents only during vacations. A UNICEF report on children who remain in their home countries while their parents migrate notes that, in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, between 7 percent and 21 percent of minors live with at least one parent abroad. Migration may improve household income, but studies on its social effects reveal a more complex reality. UNICEF warns that, although increased income can improve the material conditions of the household, prolonged separation often generates negative psychological effects associated with parental absence, such as anxiety, feelings of abandonment, or emotional insecurity.
These effects do not always appear in macroeconomic statistics, but they do influence the everyday development of children and adolescents. Family supervision declines, school support becomes irregular, and the emotional authority of the household weakens. The school thus loses one of its main allies: the family. Accordingly, various regional studies show that households with parental migration more frequently experience difficulties in monitoring school progress, especially in low-income contexts. The problem is not only academic; it also reshapes young people’s expectations. In many Latin American communities, the implicit message is no longer “study to get ahead here,” but something more pragmatic: “study enough so you can leave.”
This cultural shift reflects a profound generational difference. Previous generations grew up with the expectation of building their lives within their own country. Even in contexts of economic crisis, progress was conceived as a local process: studying, working, forming a family, and improving living conditions within the same territory. Today, for millions of young Latin Americans, success is increasingly associated with the possibility of emigrating. Migration has ceased to be an exception and has become a collective family strategy.
One consequence is the impact on youth mental health. According to UNICEF, mental disorders among young people generate economic losses exceeding 30 billion dollars per year in Latin America and the Caribbean, due to decreased productivity and school dropout. Although these problems have multiple causes, family fragmentation increasingly appears as a relevant factor in the emotional well-being of children and adolescents. The prolonged absence of parental figures affects not only emotional development, but also young people’s ability to build stable support networks. In contexts where poverty, inequality, and violence are already structural problems, this fragility can open new social vulnerabilities. The relationship between migration and juvenile delinquency is not direct, but various studies agree that prolonged lack of family supervision can increase risk factors, especially in neighbourhoods where the state has a weak presence and illegal economies offer immediate income opportunities.
The region records some of the highest homicide rates in the world. Data from the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations show that Latin America and the Caribbean have a homicide rate close to 18 per 100,000 inhabitants, approximately three times the global average. Moreover, nearly half of the homicides in the region are linked to organised crime, a proportion far higher than the global average. In this environment, criminal organisations have developed a remarkable capacity to recruit young people in vulnerable communities. UNICEF research on urban violence shows that gangs and drug trafficking networks incorporate minors into tasks such as surveillance, drug transport, messaging, and even contract killing.
These processes cannot be explained solely by family fragmentation, but neither can they be analysed while ignoring this factor. Organised crime thrives in contexts where three conditions converge: lack of economic opportunities, institutional weakness, and vulnerable social environments. When the family structure weakens, one of the most important barriers against these risks disappears. Gangs offer something many adolescents desperately seek: belonging, recognition, and an immediate source of income. This is why the discussion on migration in Latin America needs to be broadened. For years, public debate has focused on borders, regularisation, or the economic impact of remittances.
In many rural communities and urban neighbourhoods, an entire generation is growing up in households where parental presence is intermittent or distant. The result is a form of childhood different from that known by previous generations. The region thus faces a complex dilemma: on the one hand, migration will continue to be an escape valve for economies unable to absorb their entire labor force; on the other, the social cost of this mobility is beginning to be reflected in family cohesion, education, mental health, and, in some cases, security. Latin America needs to begin measuring migration not only in dollars sent, but also in lost bonds, fragmented households, and generations that grow up learning to live with absence. Remittances sustain economies, but families sustain societies—and when the latter weaken, the impact ultimately extends far beyond economic statistics.
José Luis Sampietro Saquicela PhD in Automation and Robotics. He has conducted research at various universities in France, Spain, and Ecuador on energy, technology, and development. His research focuses on the social economy, industrial transformation, and educational development.
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