The Venezuelan Humanitarian Crisis, Out-Migration, and Household Change Among Venezuelans in Venezuela and Abroad

Abstract

International migration is increasingly characterized by the need to evade threats to survival. Nevertheless, demographic understandings of how families—rather than individuals alone—decide to migrate or separate in response to threats remain limited. Focusing on the recent humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, we analyze 2012–2016 data on Venezuelans in Venezuela and 2018–2020 data on UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)-registered Venezuelans in nine receiving countries to illuminate the evolution of threats Venezuelans sought to evade, how threat evasion transformed households away from previous norms, the selection of migrants into different receiving countries and household structures, and demographic disparities in migrants’ odds of reporting changes to their household because of specific migration-related processes (e.g., leaving someone in Venezuela, leaving someone in another country). Results underscore a simultaneous escalation of economic, safety, and political concerns that informed Venezuelans’ increasing intentions to out-migrate. Where Venezuelans migrated and who ended up in their households abroad varied by demographic background and migration experiences. Among UNHCR-registered Venezuelans, 43% left family members in Venezuela, and more than 10% left or were left behind by members in another country. Such household separations, however, were unevenly distributed across factors such as age, gender, and country of reception.

Introduction

Migration has many implications for familial households. It can separate members between origin and destination settings (Van Hook and Glick 2020) and affect household composition via separation, new arrivals, deportations, and deaths on the migration journey (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; Fazel et al. 2014; Hagan et al. 2018). Although much has been written about migrant family households (henceforth “households”), most research pertains to migrants seeking economic or material gains (see Van Hook and Glick 2020). International migration, however, is increasingly driven by the evasion of imminent threats to survival (Donato and Massey 2016). For instance, millions have recently migrated abroad to escape wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Gaza (BBC News 2022; De Coninck 2022; Guichard 2020); genocide in Myanmar (Koning 2019); gang violence in Central America (Keller et al. 2017); and humanitarian and political crises in Nicaragua and Venezuela (Selee and Bolter 2020). Migration to evade such threats potentially differs from migration motivated by material gains because of differences in the perceived costs and benefits of migrating, border policies and political orientations toward migrants fleeing certain threats, and the function and resources of migrants’ social networks (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; Arar 2016).

Globally, approximately 50 million people are “migrants in need of international protection” (UNHCR 2024) whom the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) broadly defines as “prospective asylum-seekers, asylum-seekers, recognized refugees and persons with complementary, subsidiary and temporary forms of protection, and others in refugee-like situations” as well as people “who are outside their country or territory of origin, typically because they have been forcibly displaced across international borders, who have not been reported under other categories . . . but who likely need international protection” (UNHCR 2023a).¹ Migration scholars often use related terms, such as humanitarian, survival, or forced migrants (Betts 2010; De Maio et al. 2014; Saarela and Wilson 2022); displaced persons (Bohra-Mishra and Massey 2011); or sociological refugees (Arar and FitzGerald 2023). We adopt the UNHCR term “migrants in need of international protection” (MNP) to avoid invoking legally defined statuses that confer benefits to specific subsets of migrants (e.g., refugees) and in recognition of the fact that even “forced” migration often entails some personal agency. Further, expanding beyond explicit groups such as recognized refugees allows us to explore threat evasion as a demographic phenomenon occurring among a broader population whose legal recognition varies from one country to the next and can change within receiving countries over time (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; Selee and Bolter 2020).

Most of the small but growing body of demographic literature on MNP has explored individual rather than familial processes and outcomes (Alvarado and Massey 2010; Bauer et al. 2019; Guichard 2020; Jampaklay et al. 2020; Koning et al. 2021; Williams et al. 2012).² For instance, multiple studies have explored whether and how violence exposure informs individuals’ migration intentions or eventual out-migration (Alvarado and Massey 2010; Hiskey et al. 2018; Iesue forthcoming;,Inkpen et al. 2021; Massey et al. 2020; Williams et al. 2012). Although these studies provide important insights into when and how threats inform migration decisions, they reveal little about how families navigate threat evasion or how their decisions affect household composition. Yet, qualitative scholarship has increasingly highlighted that decisions about threat evasion are often made by families rather than individuals and that their strategic choices can include separating when under threat (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; Galli 2023a; Gowayed 2022; Poole 2022). Motivated by this recent work, we move beyond current analyses of individuals to quantitatively assess how threat evasion affects family households through migration processes at the family level, focusing on the recent Venezuelan diaspora as an illustrative example.

An estimated 7.1 million Venezuelans have migrated abroad as the country has economically and politically devolved into a protracted humanitarian crisis (Kurmanaev 2019; Neuman 2022; Van Roekel and de Theije 2020). Although much has been written about the demographic profiles of Venezuelan migrants in various locations (Albornoz-Arias et al. 2022; Bermúdez et al. 2018; Chaves-González and Echevarría-Estrada 2020; Mazuera-Arias et al. 2020; Pham et al. 2023), these characterizations also tend to focus on individuals rather than families. At least one study in Brazil, however, has found that less than half of Venezuelans there migrated with family (da Frota Simões et al. 2018), and another in Colombia has indicated that more than 40% anticipated returning to Venezuela to be with family (Bermúdez et al. 2018).

Building on this literature, we analyze survey data on Venezuelans in Venezuela and abroad to make four contributions to existing scholarship. First, we analyze nationally representative public opinion data from Venezuelans in origin to illustrate how deteriorating safety, economic, and political conditions related to migration intentions in the years leading up to the country's humanitarian crisis. Second, we examine changes in average household composition in Venezuela over these same years—as migration began increasing—and compare the demographics and household composition of Venezuelans in Venezuela in 2012–2016 with those registered with the UNHCR across Latin America in 2018–2020. Our analyses reveal how initial out-migration reformulated households in Venezuela and how threat evasion reshaped migrants’ households once they were abroad. Third, we take advantage of newly available surveys that are intended to be representative of UNHCR-registered Venezuelan households in nine countries to highlight systematic differences in the household structure, migration experiences, and prevalence of household change among Venezuelan MNP from distinct demographic backgrounds and in different receiving countries. Finally, we explore which UNHCR-registered Venezuelans were most likely to experience household changes and how those changes occurred, such as leaving someone in Venezuela or in another country. Our results underscore that for some families, migration was a dynamic, iterative process that continued abroad and sometimes dispersed members across more than two countries. They further demonstrate that MNP of differing ages and genders unequally experienced migration-related household changes.

The Venezuelan Humanitarian Crisis and Out-Migration

When surveyed retrospectively, Venezuelan migrants typically attribute their out-migration to economic, safety, or political concerns (Albornoz-Arias et al. 2022; Bermúdez et al. 2018; da Frota Simões et al. 2018). Inflation increased tenfold between 2014 and 2016, reaching more than 600% (Páez 2017), and rose to an astronomical level of more than 80,000% annually by 2018 (Hanke 2019). Food and medical shortages grew as inflation skyrocketed (Kurmanaev 2019; Páez 2017). By 2019, an estimated 9.3 million Venezuelans within the country suffered from food insecurity (Human Rights Watch 2022). Meanwhile, preventable and infectious diseases proliferated as medical supplies dwindled (Human Rights Watch 2022).

Public safety also eroded. Venezuela has had among the highest homicide rates worldwide since the early 2000s, and its homicide rate continued to increase through much of the 2010s (World Bank 2023a). More than 19,000 people were allegedly extrajudicially killed by the police and other security forces between 2016 and 2019—a turbulent period in which widespread opposition movements called for the resignation of President Nicolás Maduro, whom the National Assembly voted to replace in 2019 with interim President Juan Guaidó, initiating a violent political crisis. Concomitantly, armed groups, such as the National Liberation Army and the Patriotic Forces of National Liberation, expanded their presence in border states (Human Rights Watch 2022).

Figure 1 illustrates trends in Venezuelan migration to the top receiving countries during these years. The notable uptick in out-migration began in 2016, with roughly 4 million individuals leaving in both 2018 and 2019 (Selee and Bolter 2020) and the majority leaving from 2018 on (UNHCR 2023b). Most relocated within Latin America (UNHCR 2023b). Colombia—Venezuela's western neighbor—hosts the largest number of Venezuelans. Although Brazil also neighbors Venezuela, it hosts approximately only a fifth as many Venezuelans as Colombia. The next largest receivers have been Peru, Chile, and Ecuador.³

Across Latin America, Venezuelans have been met with an “uneven welcome” (Selee and Bolter 2020). By 2019, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Panama, and the Dominican Republic required visas for Venezuelans (Selee and Bolter 2020). Mexico and Costa Rica followed suit several years later (Murillo 2022). Other countries, such as Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, however, still do not require Venezuelans to hold visas to enter. Latin American receiving countries have also varied in their residency programs and the development of temporary protected statuses (TPS) for Venezuelans. For example, Argentina and Uruguay have continually granted Venezuelans two-year residency on arrival based on Mercosur, a preestablished agreement (Selee and Bolter 2020). Peru and Ecuador began offering TPS to Venezuelans in 2017 but, under mounting political and social pushback, stopped enrolling people in 2018 and 2020, respectively (Ble et al. 2020; Selee and Bolter 2020). Colombia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic did not begin offering Venezuelans residency or TPS until 2021 (Acosta 2021; Dominican Republic General Directorate of Migration 2021; International Organization for Migration 2021; Selee and Bolter 2020). Because they affect migrants’ educational access (Summers et al. 2022), labor market incorporation (Berríos-Riquelme 2021; Jeronimo Kersh 2021), and health (Alarcon et al. 2022; Pico et al. 2021), differing policy responses and immigration statuses available to Venezuelans across countries of reception likely inform at least some families’ decisions about where to migrate.

The New Economics of Displacement

To conceptualize how MNP households become dispersed across borders, we draw on the new economics of displacement (Arar and FitzGerald 2023). Like the new economics of labor migration framework (Stark and Bloom 1985), the new economics of displacement recognizes that decisions about migration are often made at the family level (Arar and FitzGerald 2023). It also considers both physical safety concerns and economic risks (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; FitzGerald and Arar 2018; Poole 2022). This framework thus heeds recent calls for migration scholars to supersede long-standing ontological distinctions between voluntary and forced migration or between refugees and economic migrants (Erdal and Oeppen 2018; FitzGerald and Arar 2018; Fussell 2012; Hamlin 2021)—distinctions that are especially complicated in cases such as out-migration from the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis.

The new economics of displacement views families under threat as weighing competing risks associated with staying versus migrating—risks that are often unequally distributed across individual family members. Some of these risks are physical (Galli 2023b). For example, women may be viewed as uniquely vulnerable and disproportionately encouraged to migrate amid pervasive sexual violence (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023:78). Even when violence is generalized, as in the case of escalating warfare, family members might not equally want to leave (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023:98; Gowayed 2022:114). Moreover, migration itself comes with risks, such as violence, trafficking, abduction, imprisonment, detention, deportation, injury, and death (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023). Families must therefore weigh the dangers that individual members face in staying versus attempting to leave (Galli 2023b).

Risks can also be economic (Gowayed 2022; Piwowarczyk et al. 2008; Tang 2015; Weitzman et al. 2024). For instance, families who migrate together risk forgoing assets or employment in their country of origin that could help fund members’ survival abroad. Because migration is costly, the cumulative costs of transportation, passport and visa fees, smugglers, and day-to-day necessities might further prohibit the simultaneous migration of all family members (Galli 2023a:39, 59–66). Accordingly, families might prefer to send individuals with the greatest perceived economic potential ahead of others.

With family decision-making and competing risks and priorities in mind, the new economics of displacement offers a theoretical framework for conceptualizing the evolution of family units through threat evasion. First, families’ strategic decisions about migration are likely to lead some households to separate, at least temporarily (Sánchez-Céspedes 2017). If so, then many Venezuelan migrants’ households abroad will likely differ from when they were in Venezuela. Concurrently, out-migration might prompt changes in household structure in countries of origin (Nobles 2013). For example, when they migrate, parents might leave their children in the care of extended family or neighbors (Galli 2023a:48, 52). Whether households in Venezuela shrink or grow, they are likely to change compositionally as a result of increased threat evasion.

Second, because families perpetually respond to evolving conditions in their country of origin and abroad (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023:92–103), changes to MNP households might occur as a function of initial out-migration or as a result of return or onward migration. For instance, violence and economic hardship at origin may subside, enhancing the appeal of return migration. At the same time, some receiving countries might have more hospitable policies—as when Peru and Ecuador began granting Venezuelans TPS in 2017—improving the prospects for MNP there. Conversely, receiving countries might suddenly amend their immigration policies to become less hospitable—as when Peru and Ecuador stopped enrolling Venezuelans in TPS in 2018 and 2020—reducing the feasibility of remaining in those countries. Changing conditions at origin and in current and alternative receiving countries might thus lead families to continually reweigh their perceived options (Arriola Vega 2021; Wilson-Forsberg and Parra 2022). Because it may not be feasible or even desirable to relocate all family members at once, some MNP families might respond to changing macro conditions by sending only one family member or sending a few family members to different locations at a time (Arar and FitzGerald 2023).

Third, migration strategizing is based on different family members’ perceived threats, resources, and needs, which are often gendered and age-graded (Arar and FitzGerald 2023; Galli 2023a). Thus, some members might be more likely to migrate alone (either initially or onward), whereas others might be more likely to migrate accompanied or to join family members abroad. For example, because women tend to shoulder the majority of childcare, they might be more likely than men to migrate with children. If so, then men migrants will be less likely than women migrants to live with children, and children will be more likely to live with women than men migrants. As another example, families might feel that it is too expensive to send financial dependents to another country by airplane but that it is unsafe for children to travel long distances by land. Correspondingly, the number of children present in MNP households could decrease with distance from Venezuela.

In sum, the new economics of displacement posits that families make strategic decisions about migration even when facing threats to survival. These decisions will lead at least some households to separate and change composition as individuals migrate abroad, migrate onward, or return migrate. The composition of MNP households is thus likely to evolve through the experience of migration(s). Of course, because migration entails detention, deportation, abduction, death, and other risks, households might also change through nonagentic migration-related processes. Considering that each member's characteristics inform families’ decisions about migration, the composition of migrants’ households abroad and the processes by which their households change are likely to differ for individuals of different ages and genders.

Data and Methods

Our investigation proceeds in three parts. First, we analyze Latin America Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) survey data collected among Venezuelans in Venezuela from 2012 to 2016 to describe the acceleration of precipitating threats in Venezuela and their connection to out-migration intentions in the years leading up to and around the start of the crisis. With these data, we also highlight shifts in the demographic composition and average household structure of Venezuelans in Venezuela during these same years. We then compare our Venezuela-based sample with UNHCR-registered Venezuelans living abroad in nine Latin American countries who participated in the UNHCR's Protection Monitoring Surveys (PMS) between 2018 and 2020 to determine which Venezuelans migrated to these other countries within the first few years of the crisis. Finally, we explore the migration experiences and household composition of different subpopulations of Venezuelan migrants, including those residing in different receiving countries, and investigate which migrants were most likely to experience changes to their household composition and why.

Venezuelans in Venezuela, 2012–2016

Sample

The LAPOP evaluates the sociopolitical experiences, perceptions, and preferences of individuals in multiple countries across the Americas. We analyze the three most recently available cross sections from Venezuela, collected in 2012, 2014, and 2016.⁴ Earlier waves are available, but they do not contain many indicators of interest. All three cross sections are nationally representative of adults (aged 18 or older) and include roughly 1,500 Venezuelans each (Table 1). Respondents were sampled using a multistage probability design. One person per household was surveyed.

Measures

LAPOP respondents report on their own sex, age, and education (which we collapse into none, primary, secondary or vocational, and higher). They additionally report “how many people in total” and how many people younger than 13 live in their household. With this information, we create a categorical indicator of household composition: solo adult, one adult with children, multiple adults with children, and multiple adults with no children. More granular information on household members’ ages, genders, and relationships to the respondent is not provided.

LAPOP surveys also inquire about sociopolitical issues, including personal economic circumstances, which are assessed by asking participants whether “the salary that [they] receive and total household income . . .” is “good enough for [them] and [they] can save from it,” “just enough for [them], so that [they] do not have major problems,” “not enough for [them] and [they] are stretched,” or “not enough for [them] and [they] are having a hard time.” The survey assesses perceived national economic circumstances by asking respondents, “Do you think that Venezuela's current economic situation is better than, the same as, or worse than it was 12 months ago?”

Perceived safety indicators are also assessed. First, crime victimization is defined as whether respondents have “been a victim of any type of crime in the past 12 months,” including “robbery, burglary, assault, fraud, blackmail, extortion, violent threats, or any other type of crime.” Second, perceived neighborhood safety is assessed with the question, “Speaking of the neighborhood where you live and thinking of the possibility of being assaulted or robbed, do you feel very safe, somewhat safe, somewhat unsafe, or very unsafe?” We reverse-code responses such that they range from 0 (“very unsafe”) to 3 (“very safe”).

Perceived government protection of rights is assessed by asking respondents, “To what extent do you think that citizens’ basic rights are well protected by the political system of Venezuela?” Possible responses range from 1 (“not at all”) to 7 (“a lot”).

Finally, migration intentions are based on the question, “Do you have any intention of going to live or work in another country in the next three years?” Response options are 1 (“yes”) or 0 (“no”).

Analytic Approach

We begin with bivariable analyses comparing differences in Venezuelans’ perceived economic circumstances, safety, rights protections, and intentions to migrate abroad in 2012, 2014, and 2016. We then explore the predictors of Venezuelans’ migration intentions separately by year, including their social circumstances, demographics, and household composition. Here, we estimate logistic regressions and, for ease of interpretation, exponentiate the results.⁵ To formally compare coefficients across models, we use seemingly unrelated estimation followed by post-estimation Wald tests of equality. Because we use listwise deletion, the number of observations varies by year. Models in which missing data are multiply imputed yield substantively similar conclusions (Table A1, online appendix).

Venezuelans Abroad, 2018–2020

Sample

The UNHCR's PMS were collected in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay between 2018 and 2020, at the height of Venezuelan out-migration (World Bank 2023b).⁶ Participants were selected from the UNHCR's database of MNP households who were UNHCR-registered in that country. One person per household completed the survey, usually by phone. Survey samples are intended to be representative of the population of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans in each receiving country. PMS questionnaires include approximately 100 questions about migration-related experiences, threats experienced at origin and abroad, and demographics. They also include a simple household roster, from which we compile information about respondents’ and their family members’ households.

In total, our PMS sample includes 52,964 individuals from 20,322 UNHCR-registered Venezuelan households.⁷ However, sample sizes differ across countries and are not proportional to the estimated population size of the Venezuelan diaspora in each receiving country. We therefore use custom weights in analyses where participants are pooled across countries (see Figure A1 in the online appendix for more details). In our individual-level sample, 38% were survey respondents (rather than household members they reported on). Table A2 (online appendix) compares respondents with nonrespondent household members.

Measures

Through a brief household roster, respondents reported on every current household member's sex and age. Age was recorded categorically as ≤5, 6–11, 12–17, 18–24, 25–49, 50–66, and ≥67 years. We collapse the latter two categories because less than 1% were 67 or older.⁸ Respondents also reported on their relationship to each household member (e.g., spouse, sibling). They did not, however, report on relationships between other members or their own marital or parental status.

Using the information respondents provided, we create two measures of household age structure, which are based on the number of adolescent or adult (≥13 years) and younger household members (<13 years), and the number of adult (≥18 years) and child or adolescent members (<18 years). Using each member's relationship to the respondent, we create a measure of household relationship structure, categorized as singular, nuclear, extended but not multigenerational, or multigenerational. From the household roster, we also create continuous indicators of the number of adults (≥18 years) and children (<18 years) in respondents’ households (including the respondent).

Additionally, we analyze information about migration experiences. First, because formal entry into a country affects subsequent opportunities for incorporation (Giménez and Méndez Triviño 2021), we include an indicator of whether respondents entered the current country “regularly,” which we interpret as entering formally through a government-regulated border control checkpoint.⁹ Second, we include a categorical indicator of whether respondents traveled mostly by vehicle, train, boat, or other; airplane; or walking. We conceptualize traveling by airplane and walking as proxies for having, respectively, the most and least resources before departure (Barchfield 2019; Borg 2020; Chaves-González and Echevarría-Estrada 2020). Because transportation was assessed only for respondents, we apply their response to all other household members.¹⁰ Finally, because geographic proximity to Venezuela might affect families’ migration calculus, we include an indicator of whether households’ current country of residence is directly adjacent to Venezuela.

To determine whether households underwent any migration-related compositional changes, PMS asked respondents, “Has the size of your family household changed compared with the time before displacement?” Those who responded affirmatively were asked why their current family size differs from before. Respondents could select multiple responses from a list that included new births; separation/divorce; and family members stayed in the country of origin, stayed in another country, returned to the country of origin, moved further, were detained, were deported, went missing, were abducted, died, or other (separately).

An estimated 56% of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans experienced any change in their household size since migrating (see Table 3). Figure 2 conveys the estimated prevalence of different sources of change. Because individuals could experience multiple changes, these prevalence rates do not sum to 100 and cumulatively sum to more than 56% (the percentage experiencing any change). Forty-three percent left household members in Venezuela; 8% left someone behind in another country of reception; 6% experienced someone moving to a different country or returning to Venezuela; and 9% experienced other events (see Table 3), including detentions, deportations, abductions, divorces, births, and deaths, among others (Figure 2). Most changes in household size (and implicitly composition) thus occurred as a function of family separations. Because only 1% experienced someone returning to Venezuela, we combine this response category with someone moving to another foreign country to create someone else left country. For similar reasons, we combine all reasons beyond migrations into an indicator of other events.

Analytic Approach

Because families make strategic decisions about which members should migrate and with whom, with implications for demographic variation in MNPs’ migration experiences and household structures, we first characterize household structures and migration experiences by age, sex, and household age composition, using chi-square tests to formally compare groups. Given that families also make strategic decisions about whom to send where, we next compare the demographics, migration experiences, household structure, and migration-related changes in households across different receiving countries. Again, we use chi-square tests to determine significant cross-country differences.

Finally, we estimate logistic regressions in which we use demographic background, migration experiences, and current household structure to predict whether someone has experienced any change in their household relative to pre-departure and whether they specifically left someone in Venezuela, left someone in another country, were left by someone else in another country, or experienced other change-inducing events (separately). For each model, the reference category is not reporting that given experience. All models include country fixed effects, which hold constant all immutable characteristics of a given receiving country, such as its geography, political history, and history of prior migration flows. Models also control for the survey year (2020 vs. 2018/2019).¹¹ Because families who have been abroad longer have been at risk of experiencing change-related events for longer durations, we further adjust for the number of months since respondents left Venezuela (<6, 6–12, and >12).¹² Regressions are weighted using the custom weights described in the notes to Figure A1 (online appendix).¹³

Results

Venezuelans’ Evolving Social Circumstances, Intentions to Migrate, and Selection Into Migration

Figure 3 conveys the evolution of Venezuelans’ perceived social conditions in Venezuela, all of which changed significantly from 2012 to 2016 (p < .001). The percentage viewing their household income as a “major problem” increased sixfold, from 7% in 2012 to 41% in 2016 (panel a). Likewise, the percentage who saw their household income as insufficient (not enough or causing major problems) doubled from 39% to 81%. Venezuelans’ perceptions of the national economy paralleled their feelings about their own income. Their safety concerns also escalated (panel b). The percentage recently experiencing crime victimization doubled from 19% to 40%, and the percentage who felt their neighborhood was “very unsafe” more than tripled from 11% to 39%. Concomitantly, Venezuelans’ confidence in their political system's protection of basic rights declined, with the percentage reporting that the system protected basic rights “not at all” tripling from 10% to 33% (panel c). Alongside their mounting concerns, Venezuelans increasingly intended to migrate abroad, from just 7% in 2012 to 35% in 2016.

Table 2 explores Venezuelans’ intentions to out-migrate in relationship to their social circumstances, demographics, and household composition. In 2012, only perceived protection of rights and education were significantly associated with Venezuelans’ migration intentions. Similarly, in 2014, only perceived protection of rights, education, and age were associated with these intentions. Comparing coefficients across the two years suggests that emergent age differences in 2014 significantly differed from null age differences in 2012.

In 2016, age and education continued to predict migration intentions. Yet, whereas adults with primary and secondary or vocational education, respectively, had 93% and 58% lower odds of intending to migrate than those with higher education in 2012, these differences were cut nearly in half by 2016. Moreover, in 2016, almost all perceived social conditions were significantly associated with intending to out-migrate. Only perceived neighborhood unsafety was not significantly associated with migration intentions (net of all other social conditions) in 2016. The positive effect of the perceived faltering of the national economy significantly differed in 2016 from the null effect observed in 2014. The estimated effect sizes of household economic insecurity and crime victimization were also larger in 2016 than in 2014, but these differences were not sufficiently large to be detected because of the large confidence intervals surrounding them.

Next, we explore concomitant changes in the demographic composition of Venezuelan adults in Venezuela from 2012 to 2016. As shown in the left panel in Table 1, the number aged 18–24 increased while the number aged 25–49 decreased as a share of the adult population during these years.¹⁴ The adult sex ratio remained stable, but educational composition began to change dramatically. Whereas only 5% of adults in Venezuela had no education in 2012, this group constituted 16% of adults by 2016. The percentage of adults with only primary education also grew. Correspondingly, the percentage with secondary/vocational or higher education declined. Thus, as the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis started unfolding, adults aged 25–49 or who were more highly educated were among the first to leave.

Similar patterns are evinced among UNHCR-registered Venezuelan adults abroad in 2018–2020. As shown in the far-right column in Table 1, the adult sex ratio is even, but adults aged 25–49 are overrepresented relative to the adult population in Venezuela in 2016 and earlier. Likewise, those with no education or primary education are underrepresented, whereas those with secondary/vocational or higher education are overrepresented. These findings are consistent with higher selection into migration among more highly educated adults.

Out-migration has implications for Venezuelans’ household structure both in Venezuela and abroad. Between 2012 and 2016, the percentage of adults living alone in Venezuela rose from 1% to 3%, and the percentage in households with multiple adults and children rose from 42% to 59% (Table 1, left panel). Meanwhile, the percentage living in households with multiple adults and no children in Venezuela declined from 55% to 36%. This latter change implies that childless multiple-adult households disproportionately out-migrated in the years leading up to the crisis or began to house others’ children as those children's former caregivers migrated abroad. Given that adults in childless multiple-adult households are vastly underrepresented among UNHCR-registered Venezuelans abroad relative to Venezuelans in Venezuela in 2012 (22% vs. 55%), the housing of others’ children is a more fitting explanation. Moreover, the percentage of UNHCR-registered adults living alone abroad in 2018–2020 (17%) is more than five times the percentage in Venezuela in 2016 and 17 times the percentage in Venezuela in 2012. This skew toward living alone abroad is also consistent with adults leaving children behind.

Demographics, Migration Experiences, and Household Structure of UNHCR-Registered Venezuelans Abroad

We next describe the demographics, migration experiences, and household structure of Venezuelans who migrated abroad and registered with the UNHCR in one of the countries in our sample. Table 3 offers descriptive statistics for the full UNHCR-registered sample and compares the features of different subgroups. For parsimony, we focus on patterns indicative of families’ migration strategizing.

Consistent with children having fewer assets and lower earning potential than adults, children are roughly only a third as likely as adults older than 50 to have taken an airplane and 70% more likely to have walked to their destination (17% vs. 10%, panel 2). Children are also least likely to have entered their current destination regularly; the frequency of such activity increases with age. Owing to their physical or financial dependency, more than 99% of children live with adults (panel 2). However, unaccompanied children are the most likely to live in neighboring Colombia or Brazil, and they are nearly twice as likely as adults living without children to do so (60% vs. 33% and 34%, panel 4).

Meanwhile, 13% to 17% of adults live alone (panel 2). Solo adults are among the most likely to have flown and have entered their destination regularly, consistent with solo adults being among the least likely to live in a country neighboring Venezuela (panel 4). These findings point to households’ potentially strategic separations, in which one adult who can enter a foreign country formally—which usually requires formal documentation—migrates alone, at least at first. Solo adults are the most likely to have experienced changes in their household size since pre-departure (panel 4), coalescing with the fact that only 1% of adults lived alone in Venezuela before 2018 (Table 1). Like solo adults, members of childless multiple-adult households are among the most likely to have traveled by airplane, to have entered their destination regularly, and to live in a country that does not immediately neighbor Venezuela (Table 3, panel 4).

Half of all migrants are women except among adults ≥50 years, 59% of whom are women (panel 2). This elevated proportion may be because older women are seen as more vulnerable than older men—and thus in greater need of leaving Venezuela—or as more appropriate caretakers whose presence can enable other adults to earn an income. Consistent with both interpretations, women are 21% less likely than men to have walked to their current destination (15% vs. 19%), approximately half as likely to be adults living alone, 38% more likely to live in multigenerational households (18% vs. 13%), and more likely to live with children than men (panel 3).

Ten percent of migrants live in households with one adult and children (panel 1), and 92% live in nuclear households (panel 4). The other 8% live in households where the adult is not the children's parent.

These results suggest that Venezuelan migrants of different ages and sexes have significantly different household structures and migration experiences. In turn, diasporic Venezuelan households of differing structures have distinct age and gender distributions. These findings are generally consistent with the notion that families make strategic decisions about which and how individual members should migrate.

Cross-Country Comparisons of UNHCR-Registered Venezuelans Abroad

Table 4 explores differences across receiving countries. Rather than fully describe the demographic profile of these populations, we highlight patterns indicative of families’ place-based migration calculus. Our discussion of policies in countries of reception reflect policies at the time of UNHCR data collection.

First, Colombia's shared border with Venezuela and its acceptance of expired passports make it one of the most feasible migration destinations. Only 1% of those in Colombia traveled by airplane, and only 35% entered regularly. These features also suggest that Colombia is an easier destination for children. Indeed, a greater share of Venezuelans are children in Colombia than elsewhere, and more than a third of Venezuelan migrants in Columbia are children. Further, 75% of all UNHCR-registered Venezuelan migrants in Columbia live in households with children, and they live in households that have an average of almost two children.

Ecuador and Peru—two other Andean nations—border Colombia and previously offered TPS to Venezuelans. As in Colombia, only 2% of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans in these countries traveled by airplane. However, 80% and 87%, respectively, entered Ecuador and Peru regularly—more than twice the percentage in Colombia. The slightly greater distance and potentially greater bureaucratic hurdles indicated by higher rates of regular entry might make these countries less feasible destinations for children than Colombia. Nonetheless, their TPS programs around the time of data collection may have enhanced their appeal. This combination of factors likely accounts for the higher prevalence of children in both countries relative to those farther south. Yet, compared with Colombia, their prevalence of children is slightly lower (28% to 29%), as is the percentage of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans living with children.

The Southern Cone—Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay—are among the countries farthest from Venezuela. In Chile, 30% of Venezuelans traveled by airplane, compared with 76% to 78% of those in Argentina and Uruguay. All three countries have among the lowest percentages of children (17% to 21%) and the highest percentages of adults living childless with other adults (30% to 35%).

Brazil, Venezuela's southern neighbor, did not require visas or passports for Venezuelans in 2019. However, it has a different national language, and the border largely consists of water and dense rainforest. Most Venezuelans in Brazil traveled by land but not by walking (95%). Most entered regularly. Similar to Venezuela's Andean neighbors, 30% of Venezuelans in Brazil are children, and 60% live in households with children. On the other hand, along with Chile, Brazil has the largest percentage of solo adults (23%). Venezuelans in Brazil have the lowest rates of leaving someone in another country (3%) and of being left by someone once abroad (4%). Thus, once in Brazil, Venezuelan households may separate at a lower rate than such households elsewhere.

In sum, children and living with children are most common in countries nearest to Venezuela: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. They are especially common in Colombia, Venezuela's immediate neighbor, where far fewer Venezuelans enter regularly. In countries substantially farther away, children and households with them are less common, and a greater share of migrants enter regularly and travel by airplane. On the whole, regional patterns and significant cross-country differences provide further evidence of families’ strategizing about geography and how to (sometimes) separate.

Changes in Diasporic Venezuelans’ Households

Table 5 presents the results of weighted logistic regressions estimating the odds that a migrant experienced a change in their household since leaving Venezuela and the odds of four underlying sources of change.¹⁵

Notably, children have significantly lower odds of experiencing any change in their household size than adults of any age. Children also have significantly lower odds of leaving someone in Venezuela than adults aged 18–49 years. Meanwhile, adults older than 50 have 50% higher odds than children—and the highest odds overall—of being left in a foreign country by someone else. They also have 23% higher odds than children of experiencing “other” reasons for household change (e.g., someone died or was deported). Net of other factors, gender is rarely associated with the odds of experiencing household changes. The one exception is that relative to men, women have 11% higher odds of being left by another household member once abroad.

With respect to household age structures, adults who live alone have significantly higher odds than all other adults that their household changed relative to in Venezuela—a finding that parallels the higher odds of having left someone in Venezuela among solo adults relative to all other adults. Individuals living in households with multiple adults and children have 29% and 43% lower odds of, respectively, having left someone in another foreign country and being left behind by someone else in another country than solo adults; however, they have 183% higher odds of experiencing all other change-inducing events than solo adults do. Unaccompanied children's odds of experiencing a change in their household and experiencing varying sources of change do not differ significantly from those of solo adults, with one exception: they have 325% higher odds of experiencing “other” change-inducing events, such as a household member's detention, deportation, or death. In fact, unaccompanied children's odds of experiencing at least one of these other change-inducing events are significantly higher than among all adults, suggesting these processes are key mechanisms that may render UNHCR-registered Venezuelan children without adult accompaniment.

Primarily traveling by airplane—our proxy for pre-departure socioeconomic advantage—is associated with 22% lower odds of having experienced any household change since departure and with 46% lower odds of having left someone in another country than primarily traveling by vehicle, train, boat, or other. Conversely, primarily traveling by walking—our proxy for pre-departure socioeconomic disadvantage—is associated with 7% higher odds of having left someone in Venezuela relative to traveling by vehicle, train, boat, or other. Migrants who entered their current receiving country regularly have 17% lower odds of experiencing any change in their household size than those who entered irregularly. Likewise, they have 14% and 18% lower odds, respectively, of having left someone in Venezuela or another country and 13% lower odds of experiencing all other change-inducing events. Migrants living in the nearby Andean countries of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru have lower odds of experiencing any change in their household than migrants elsewhere. They also have lower odds of leaving someone in Venezuela and of being left behind in a foreign country than migrants in most other countries.

Discussion

Leveraging representative data on Venezuelans in origin and UNHCR-registered Venezuelan migrants across Latin America, we highlight how threat evasion transforms family households. Our analyses refine and expand insights from recent qualitative scholarship (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023; Galli 2023a; Gowayed 2022) and the new economics of displacement framework to illuminate the population-level implications of families’ migration strategizing when under threat. We show how families’ decisions about whether and how to separate can be iterative and (sometimes repeatedly) disperse and restructure families across borders. This dispersion has consequences for Venezuelan households in Venezuela and abroad, which we illuminate with data from both.

Our analysis of the Venezuelan case highlights how multiple dimensions of humanitarian crises can prompt migration, including economic dimensions. By 2016, economic deprivation, crime victimization, and unfavorable perceptions of basic rights were each significantly associated with intentions to leave Venezuela, blurring ontological distinctions between economic migrants and refugees or MNP. Further blurring this distinction, we observe a steady uptick in Venezuelans’ intentions to out-migrate—and shrinking educational differences in migration intentions—from 2012 to 2016. These temporal changes highlight how the emergence of threats can be protracted and, with time, affect demographically diverse subpopulations. They also highlight the need for demographic conceptualizations of threat evasion that move beyond a focus on legally recognized refugees, who constitute only a select subpopulation of MNP who qualify for a highly politicized and narrowly defined legal immigration status.

Venezuelans’ out-migration separated and reformulated households as family members became dispersed across borders. For example, the share of childless households in Venezuela declined between 2012 and 2014. Thus, very early on, adults were more likely than children to leave, and they left their children in the care of other households. Thus, threat evasion that prompted family separations affected both those who left and those who stayed. Consistent with this pattern of adult-led migration, the percentage of Venezuelan households abroad that consisted of solo adults in 2018–2020 was more than 10 times greater than in Venezuela in 2012.

On the whole, more than half of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans abroad lived in a household of a different size and thus a different composition than when they were in Venezuela. Compositional changes most frequently occurred during the initial departure process, with 41% of individuals leaving a household member in Venezuela. Nevertheless, our analysis of migrants revealed that, even once abroad, more than 10% experienced household changes as a function of subsequent international migrations in which some household members migrated. Prior scholarship suggests that subsequent migrations occurring after initial out-migration are reflective of families’ adaptive migration decision-making in response to changing conditions in origin and destination settings (Arar and Fitzgerald 2023).

The prevalence of household changes among UNHCR-registered Venezuelans was nonetheless different for individuals with distinct demographic backgrounds and in different receiving countries. For instance, children more often lived closer to Venezuela—in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Panama—than elsewhere. Furthermore, Venezuelans in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru were among the most likely to live with their complete household—for example, to have not experienced a migration-related household change. These patterns signal that remaining geographically closer to Venezuela was a more viable option for families with children and families whose migration calculus involved staying intact. These geographic differences in family separation have downstream implications for geographic differences in migrants’ integration, work, remittances, and childcare needs.

Considering that the new economics of displacement is derived from the new economics of labor migration framework (Stark and Bloom 1985), it is not unexpected that some of the patterns we observe are consistent with extant scholarship on economic migrants. Indeed, as others have found among migrants who primarily migrate to pursue economic or material gains (Cerrutti and Massey 2001; Donato and Gabaccia 2015), we find that Venezuelan men and young adults are the most likely to live alone. Yet, we also detect distinctive patterns, including that half of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans are female, nearly a third are children, and 44% experienced no change in their household.

These findings have several noteworthy implications. First, given that family separation is consistently associated with negative mental health outcomes among MNP (Miller et al. 2018), demographic differences in household changes, which primarily reflect family separation(s), might contribute to uneven mental health burdens across MNP subpopulations. Second, policy scholars continue to debate the utility and consequences of using genetic testing to reunite families, particularly parents and children (see Heinemann et al. 2016). Reunification policies that rely on genetic testing tend to privilege nuclear relationships over extended ones, thereby discrediting relationships between chosen or extended family. Yet, as we show, more than a third of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans live with extended family or in multigenerational households (Table 3). These individuals have significantly lower odds of experiencing any change in their household than migrants in nuclear households (Table A3, online appendix). Living with extended and multigenerational families was thus normative, at least among Venezuelan MNP, and the presence of nonnuclear kin did not necessarily signal a departure from the household composition in origin. Moreover, nonnuclear kin can play a vital role in MNP's household life: 8% of Venezuelan migrant children in single adult-headed households lived with an adult who was not their parent. Although it is desirable for children to be reunited with their parents when possible, it is also important to recognize their attachments to other caregivers and to consider their rights and vulnerabilities when separated from either.

This study should be considered in the context of several limitations. First, our migrant sample is representative of MNP who are specifically registered with the UNHCR, especially those with a working phone. More socioeconomically disadvantaged or rural MNP households may have a harder time accessing cellphone service, thwarting their survey participation. Likewise, not all Venezuelan migrants register with the UNHCR (Ozkul 2020).

Second, we have limited information on migrants’ pre-departure socioeconomic status and can only draw inferences on the basis of the proxy of travel mode. We nevertheless observe differences across travel modes that are consistent with socioeconomic stratification. For example, prior work suggests that the most socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals should be least likely to out-migrate (Lubkemann 2008). We find that those who walked to their destination have the highest odds of having left household members in Venezuela.

Third, we lack information on PMS respondents’ relationship status and parity. We therefore cannot know whether respondents living without spouses or children do not have them or are geographically separated from them. By extension, we cannot be sure whether households with one adult and children reflect a new or previously existing separation of children from a parent.

Fourth, a lack of details on pre-migration household composition prevents us from exploring the relationship between pre- and post-migration household structure among migrants and from assessing who remained in Venezuela. Similarly, because we do not have longitudinal data or data linking migrants to households in origin, we cannot test all dimensions of the new economics of displacement framework.

Although MNP account for an increasing share of all international migrants worldwide, a dearth of plausibly representative household samples has stymied demographic understandings of these populations. Our findings, which come from new cross-national samples of UNHCR-registered Venezuelans abroad, expand extant scholarship by illuminating demographic differences in the household structure, migration experiences, family separations, and geographic location of UNHCR-registered Venezuelan households. Comparing Venezuelan households abroad and in origin, we further illuminate how threat evasion has also transformed households in Venezuela at the population level. Our findings shed new light on the magnitude and demographic implications of the family dispersion that results from threat evasion.

Acknowledgments

This research was made possible with funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (K01HD099313; PI: A. Weitzman) and with the support of the University of Texas's Population Research Center, which is also funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849). The content of this study is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The authors are grateful to Jeffrey Swindle, Matthew Blanton, Julia Behrman, Emily Smith-Greenaway, Sarah Hayford, and Kelly Raley for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

References