Población y migraciones rurales en México: Hipótesis para otro siglo

Abstract

This article approaches the issue on territorial population allocation in Mexico and its concentration in the cities, understood as a specific dimension of the countryís economic development. Specifically, two strong trends, pointed out in some population projections for the year 2000, are analyzed. These trends are: the decrease on rural-urban migration and the decrease on rural population in total terms. The first hypothesis comes to contradict, what has been called for about a century, one of the ìdemographic lawsî: the steady increase of rural-urban migration. The second hypothesis demands for a detailed analysis because at first glance it would seem opposed to the former, but the contradiction vanishes if the phenomenon is considered from the reclassification perspective of rural localities into urban ones. Ultimately, both hypothesis represent important warnings for the design of population politics.