Ecuador’s high poverty and income inequality most affect indigenous, mixed race, and rural populations.  The government has increased its social spending to ameliorate these problems, but critics question the efficiency and implementation of its national development plan.  Nevertheless, the conditional cash transfer program, which requires participants’ children to attend school and have medical check-ups, has helped improve educational attainment and health care among poor children.  Ecuador’s total fertility rate – the average number of children born per woman – is just below replacement level as of 2023, but its population is continuing to grow.

Ecuador continues to be both a country of emigration and immigration. The first large-scale emigration of largely undocumented Ecuadorians occurred between 1980 and 2000, when an economic crisis drove Ecuadorians from southern provinces to New York City, where they had connections from the earlier Panama hat trade. Emigration from all parts of Ecuador in the late 1990s was caused by another economic downturn, political instability, and a currency crisis. Spain was the logical destination because of its shared language and the wide availability of low-skilled, informal jobs at a time when increased border surveillance made illegal migration to the US difficult. Ecuador became Spain’s second largest immigrant source country. The bulk of Ecuadorian emigration, however, occurred between 2000 and 2007, largely to the US, Spain, and Italy.  Emigration has again surged since 2017, as economic problems, high unemployment, poverty, and violence have lead thousands of Ecuadorian migrants and refugees to head to the US.  As of 2021, Ecuadorians were the fourth-highest nationality coming into contact with US Customs and Border Protection at the US-Mexico border. Most Ecuadorian migrants and refugees traverse the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama to reach Mexico. Although Mexico reinstated a visa requirement in September 2021, Ecuadorians continue to enter Mexico illegally and then travel to the US or Canada.  Some wind up staying in Mexico if their journeys north fail. Emigrants represent 8-10% of Ecuador’s population, as of 2021. 

Ecuador hosts one of the region’s largest refugee populations.  From 2000-2005, Colombians arrived in growing numbers to escape armed conflict, and they have continued to immigrate to Ecuador steadily.  Between 2008, when Ecuador lifted visa requirements for all countries, and 2016, immigrants entered from Haiti, Cuba, and other continents.  The influx of Venezuelans began in 2017, and, as of May 2022, Ecuador was home to the third-largest community of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the world at over half a million.  Immigrants and refugees account for 3-5% of the Ecuador’s population, as of 2021.