An analysis of Mexican remigration to the U.S.

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of Mexican migrants to the U.S. and their decisions to remigrate. We concentrate on the relative impacts of market and nonmarket factors such as income, remittances, and migration networks. We analyze the remigration decision of male, illegal migrants using data from the Mexican Migration Project. Current migration proposals are geared towards policy that would allow for some type of temporary workers. The empirical model presented here allows for a comparison of the relative impacts of market and non-market factors on the decision to choose among different remigration options. The results indicate that income, remittances, and migration networks have significant effects on the remigration decisions of male, undocumented migrants.

Introduction

The 2,000-mile border shared by Mexico and the U.S., as well as the extensive differences in per capita income and demographic characteristics between the two countries, has provided the setting for large migration flows throughout the past century. The migration flows from Mexico have been generally constant with the exception of the 1930s and the 1950s when there were considerable decreases in the numbers of both legal and illegal Mexican migrants to the U.S. (Briggs, 1975). U.S. policy with respect to migrants from Mexico has varied between policies that encourage temporary migration and those designed to impact the legal status of permanent migrants. For instance, the Bracero program, initiated during World War II, was based on providing rural, temporary employment for Mexican migrants. More recently, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided amnesty and legal status to immigrant workers who could prove they had been in the U.S. for an extended period. The current emphasis of U.S. policy appears to have shifted back toward temporary migration. (1)

Migration policy is obviously important to the Mexican government as well. An aspect of immigration that receives more attention in Mexico than in the U.S. is the impact that remittances from the U.S. have on the development of the Mexican economy. Due to the fact that the remittances of migrants represent a huge inflow of money into the Mexican economy, migration policy is defacto development policy for the Mexican government. These remittances totaled $US 20 billion in 2005, equivalent to 118 percent of foreign direct investment or 71 percent of oil revenues (Mexico's largest export); in addition, remittances were equal to 25% of the wages in the formal sector that year (Bank of Mexico, 2006). (2)

The issue of Mexican migration to the U.S. has been studied extensively using a variety of models and data. (3) However, most of these studies evaluate the initial migration or treat each migration decision in the same way. We analyze the remigration decision separately from initial migration decisions. The focus of this paper is to analyze the remigration decision for individuals who have already made one migration from Mexico to the U.S., concentrating on the relative impacts of market and non-market factors. Cornelius (1990) and the Binational Study on Migration (Tovar et al., 1997) used the terms "sojourner" and "settler" that have become standard in describing migrants. To most readers, these terms would indicate someone who migrates frequently (sojourner) and one that is a more permanent migrant (settler). However, the Binational Study classifies migrants as "sojourners" if they consider Mexico to be their place of residence and a "settler" if they habitually reside in the U.S. (p. 14). Cornelius (1990, p. 30) indicates that some migrants consider themselves "sojourners" even though by the standard definition they are actually "settlers." We avoid this conflicting interpretation of migrant types by constructing the following categories: Those who choose to make repeated, temporary remigrations are termed "multiple-trip migrants," while those who make a more permanent remigration are labeled "stayers." We analyze the remigration decisions of male, illegal migrants (i.e., those without entrance visas) who reside in communities that have been traditionally a source of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. In our analysis, the remigration decision requires that the potential migrant choose between three outcomes: (1) do not remigrate; (2) be a multiple-trip migrant; or (3) be a stayer. The determinants of this three-outcome remigration decision will be evaluated empirically using a multinomial logit model.

We concentrate on undocumented migrants since the U.S. policy concentrates on this group and since U.S. policy makes documented immigration' different in almost every aspect than undocumented immigration (Massey & Espinosa, 1997). For instance, undocumented migration is much more hazardous than documented migration (GAO, 2006). In addition, there are approximately 5.9 million undocumented, Mexican immigrants, accounting for 57% of the total undocumented population. Furthermore, approximately one-half of all Mexican immigrants are undocumented (Passel, 2005). The majority of research on Mexican migration to the U.S. has concentrated on male migrants since most Mexican migrants have been male. Although this is still true today, the percentage of migrants that are female has been steadily increasing (Donato, 1993; Cerrutti & Massey, 2001). As is the case for undocumented and documented workers, we expect that the decision to migrate will be different for women and men. For instance, evidence suggests that women migrate for family reasons much more often than men (Cerrutti & Massey, 2001). Although it is important to study the migration behavior of both women and men to fully understand the impact of any policy, we concentrate on male migrants since men still comprise over two-thirds of Mexican undocumented migrants to the U.S.

Migration researchers have analyzed the effects of both market and non-market factors. The introduction of market factors to models of migration began with the work of Todaro (1969) and Harris and Todaro (1970), where the concept of the opportunity cost of migration is introduced. The opportunity cost of migration is a function of available wages, since migration means giving up income in the home location for income in the destination location and not migrating means giving up income in the destination location. Non-market factors have increasingly been used to explain the decision to migrate. The most commonly used non-market factors are migration networks. (4) Migration networks are connections established between the home location and the destination location that facilitate migration. The results from this study indicate that income potential, networks, education, age, and other variables impact which of the remigration decision and that there are characteristic differences among remigrants who choose to become multiple-trip migrants and those who choose to be stayers.

Remigration Decision and Data

This paper attempts to shed light on the differences between Mexicans who make a single migration to the U.S. and those who are either multiple-trip migrants or stayers. Based on past literature, we expect that the choice of remigration type will be a function of home and destination wages (as in the Harris-Todaro model) and migration connections (as in the network model). With respect to wages, a higher wage in the U.S. relative to Mexico increases the benefit of migration and the benefit associated with longer migration durations, increasing the probability of remigration and leading to longer stays in the U.S. Migration network connections will affect the remigration decision by increasing the probability of obtaining a post-migration job and lowering migration costs. Therefore, increased network connections are predicted to increase the probability of remigration. In addition, migration networks may lead to longer stays due to increased familiarity with the U.S.

The data used in this study is from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP). (5) The MMP is a collaborative research project based at Princeton University and the University of Guadalajara. MMP data include information from surveys conducted in 93 communities in Mexican states that have shown to be a source of large numbers of migrants to the U.S. The surveys ask respondents to include retrospective information on a variety of economic, demographic, and migration issues, such as the number and timing of past migrations. Therefore, MMP data include individual longitudinal information for years up to the survey year, making it possible to obtain individual demographic information at the time of first migration for all those respondents who migrated at some point prior to the survey year. We analyze remigration decisions that occurred over the period 1965 to 1996 for undocumented male migrants.

Dependent Variable

We separate potential remigrants into three types: single-trip migrants, stayers, and multiple-trip migrants. Categorizing single-trip migrants necessitates a judgment of the appropriate time period to study. Analysis of the data reveals that 90% of all repeat migrations occur within five years of the initial migration. Thus, we choose a five-year window for the remigration decision. (6) Consequently, if five years has passed since the first migration without a return trip to the U.S., the migrant is categorized as a single-trip migrant. Alternatively, if five years had passed since the migrant first migrated and he has remained in the U.S., the migrant is categorized as a stayer. A migrant is categorized as a multiple-trip migrant if he has made multiple migration trips over the five-year window used in this study.

Independent Variables

The Harris-Todaro model utilizes the differential between income in the destination and home locations as a measure of the monetary benefit from migration. In the present study, we cannot use this variable since multiple-trip migrants make multiple migrations, which each may be impacted by different income differentials. Instead, we use an individual's age and level of education at the time of first migration to indicate income-earning potential. To further indicate potential income in Mexico, we include the variables minwage and agriculture, community-level variables that represent, respectively, the percentage of males earning less than the Mexican minimum wage in the year of first migration and the percentage of males working in the

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