Projections on insecurity, unemployment and poverty and their consequences in Lima's district San Juan de Lurigancho in the next 10 years

Lima, the Peruvian capital, with 10 million inhabitants is the 30th most populated city in the world. San Juan de Lurigancho is one of the 18 districts in Lima and it has about 10% of the population from the Peruvian capital. This work puts forward an analysis on the effects of the 10-year-population growth on poverty, insecurity and unemployment in this district. First, a projection of the population was done following the methodology of systems dynamics based on systems thinking and the software Stella. Then we analyzed whether population growth had a bad effect on poverty in the district based on past data. We obtained that in 2029 there will be approximately 1.23 million inhabitants which surpasses the population in 15 out of 24 departments in Peru. Narrowing down the search, in 2027 the district would have a ratio of 1 policeman for 1330 people which is far from the international standard ratio that suggests 1 policeman for every 300 people. Furthermore, the population between 14 and 24 years old would increase in the district. This increase plus the unemployment rate in Lima for people between 14-24 led us to believe that the job market would be even more competitive and the youth unemployed may increase in the next 10 years. It is expected that this work helps to demonstrate the problem of the population growth in the district of San Juan de Lurigancho and also serve as a guide to authorities from Peru to take action on this issue.

I. Introduction

Peru has a population of around 30 million people and is one of the most populated countries in the Americas. The capital of Peru, Lima, has 10 million people and is the 30th most populated city in the world [1]. Lima is formed by 18 districts and one of them, San Juan de Lurigancho, with approximately 1 million people represents 10% of the population in the capital [2]. The district was created in 1967 and had a normal growth until 1979. Between 1979 and 1992, Peru suffered a long period of social and political crisis that provoked the biggest migration towards the capital and San Juan de Lurigancho was the district which received most immigrants [3]. In the’ 80s the depletion of land in traditional areas and the lack of government policies to solve the issue of housing made many migrate and people with limited resources captured any kinds of land, creating several “young towns”.