And given time, probably 50% will do so. Same in Haiti and many other places in the Caribbean. The Mega World economy is way too attractive for workers and dreamers alike.

.........and it is the money they sent back home to family members remaining on the island that has enabled those members to survive the economic unpleasantness of day to day life.

A Columbia University survey says 71% of the Dominicans send money home on a regular basis. Approximately 710,000 Dominicans living in the US send $1.6 billion to the DR on a yearly basis.

source:
http://www.earthinstitute.columbi....es/documents/bendixen_NYNov04.pdf

That's the other Investment scheme. Dominicans living aboard actually act like a huge Social service Institution for the DR! Call it the DR Welfare State funded by ex-pats living in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

Same thing happens with Salvadorians, Mexicans, etc. This was done as part of the Boot Strap Program to modernize Puerto Rico back in the late 1940s-1970's. Roughly a million PR left the island and many sent back sums and returned to live out their retirement years in PR. The DR and other Latin nations expect a wave of retirees to spend their last days in their birth countries and thus help in modernizing the old countries at the same time. Buying Condos, services, products, and building homes and businesses.

It should a SHAME for a sovereign State to acknowledge that there are 20 % of their citizens living abroad, as if this was something to be proud of. Most of us are not here out of our own volition but out of necessity. The economic elite of our country has found that this is an easy way to strip our country of their resources and get richer and richer everyday. AGAIN, What a SHAME !!

It has nothing at all to do with shame Willmo, and everything to do with REALITY. During the 19th century waves of Europeans left their countries en mass and embarked upon a Global journey to find BETTER OPPORTUNITIES for their sons and daughters. Northern and Central Europeans were later joined by massive waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern European lands. Asians too contributed notible numbers. In the late 20th century or 1965, the Immigration Laws were changed by the biggest immigration destination, the USA, and millions more have joined the earlier waves from previous the previous century. This historical phenomemon has made the world A BETTER PLACE. More commerce and believe it or not, a better chance at negotiating Global understanding.

DR would be a far poorer and less enlighten country had it remained purely Dominican.

Wilmo "should a SHAME for a sovereign State to acknowledge that there are 20 % of their citizens living abroad" Nations have no shame. Consider all the american slaves that are fleeing to earn money abroad while simultaneously escaping tyranny.

Tell him VivaCuba. You can be like Masa and live in greater freedom, no?

Most of those 20% left when the country was experiencing a so-call-economic-boom. Replaced by 20% percept of Haitians living abroad.

Most of those 20% left when the country was experiencing a so-call-economic-boom. Replaced by 20% percept of Haitians living abroad.