Back in the history, people chose to emigrate. It was a selective process an emigrants were rarely a random sample of the population from which they were drawn. The most frequent selection was by age. Most groups of emigrants contained more young adults and fewer children and old people than the home population.

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There was also selection by gender. In general, men were more likely to emigrate than women. But the emigrant sex ratio was not the same in every country. It could depend on whether the emigrants were likely to return, for example.

In Argentina, large numbers of women in the missions were employed in manufacturing textiles, while men were trained as mesons, scribes, musicians and the creative artists.