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Puerto Rico exodus: long-term economic headwinds prove stronger than Hurricane Maria

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Abstract

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico causing 102 billion worth of damages, demolishing the electric grid and severely affecting essential daily services. Disaster recovery continues as of the onset of the second half of 2020. Our research investigates whether the postdisaster population mobility was greater than the long-term out-migration that has followed the economic recession. This paper makes use of longitudinal demographic and economic data spanning Hurricane Maria to give a long-term view of population change in Puerto Rico. First, we examine population and employment trends in relation to hurricanes and significant economic events and find that population change is more responsive to employment shocks than hurricane events. Second, we examine air passenger travel data to estimate net migration between 2010 and 2018. The data reveal a sharp spike in out-migration following the hurricanes as well as elevated in-migration in the first half of 2018. In short, the evidence presented suggests that the struggling economy is the main cause of net out-migration from Puerto Rico, while out-migration in response to the hurricane-related destruction is mostly temporary. Consequently, plans for Puerto Rico’s recovery should focus on stimulating the economy.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to specially recognize the work of Alberto Velázquez-Estrada of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics. We also want to recognize the contributions of Raúl Santiago-Bartolomei (Center for a New Economy), Bureau of Economic and Business Research at University of Florida, the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, the Social Science Research Institute and the Population Research Institute (P2CHD041025) at the Pennsylvania State University. Finally, we thank the editor, guest editor, and the reviewers for their suggestions to previous versions of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Alexis R. Santos-Lozada

  2. Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics LLC, 8383 Greenway Blvd, Suite 600, Middleton, WI, 53711, USA

    Matt Kaneshiro

  3. Data Scientist and Demographer, Nielsen LLC, Tampa, FL, USA

    Collin McCarter

  4. Independent Researcher, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Mario Marazzi-Santiago

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  1. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada
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Correspondence to Matt Kaneshiro.

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Santos-Lozada, A.R., Kaneshiro, M., McCarter, C. et al. Puerto Rico exodus: long-term economic headwinds prove stronger than Hurricane Maria. Popul Environ 42, 43–56 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-020-00355-5

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