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Mexican Immigration to the United States: Continuities and Changes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Jorge Durand
Affiliation:
Universidad de Guadalajara
Douglas S. Massey
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
René M. Zenteno
Affiliation:
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara
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Abstract

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This research note examines continuities and changes in the profile of Mexican migration to the United States using data from Mexico's Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica, the U.S. Census, and the Mexican Migration Project. Our analysis generally yields a picture of stability over time. Mexico-U.S. migration continues to be dominated by the states of Western Mexico, particularly Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán, and it remains a movement principally of males of labor-force age. As Mexico has urbanized, however, out-migration has come to embrace urban as well as rural workers; and as migrant networks have expanded, the flow has become less selective with respect to education. Perhaps the most important change detected was an acceleration in the rate of return migration during the early 1990s, reflecting the massive legalization of the late 1980s.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the University of Texas Press

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