Where have all the Salvadorans gone?

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Census takers in El Salvador are going door to door this month to take the measure of this nation’s households. Citizens’ responses have provoked an important question: Where the heck is everyone?

A preliminary head count reveals that El Salvador’s current population is probably about 6.7 million people, according to a story in the national daily La Prensa Grafica. That’s well below the 7.1 million residents that demographers had projected based on data from the last census in 1992.

Heavy migration has played a role. More than 15% of people born in El Salvador are living in the United States, according to figures from the Pew Hispanic Center. The country is also experiencing lower birth rates as impoverished families flee the countryside to find work in the cities and more women enter the workforce.

Posted by Marla Dickerson in San Salvador