Mexico-US migration

This study examines the interrelationship between migration and marital fertility, using a bi-national sample of retrospective life histories collected in Mexican origin communities and U.S. destination areas. We treat couples as the unit of analysis and use discrete-time hazard models to examine: (1) how the timing and parity of births influence the occurrence of migration (to the U.S. or return to Mexico) and the type of migration (solo or couple), and (2) how current migration status and cumulative migration experience influence the likelihood of a birth.
Examining the effects of fertility on migration, and the effects of migration on the timing of births, we are able to address how couples integrate migration opportunities and fertility goals into family building strategies in a context where international circular migration is pervasive.

This article describes contemporary return migration from the U.S. to rural communities in Campeche and Tabasco. Findings indicate that migrants went back due to the same reasons that have historically characterized Mexican return flows: family ties. Yet, the decision to return, or not, has been increasingly shaped by (increasingly) restrictive immigration politics, and the (recent) economic downturn in the United States, among other things. Under this bleak outlook the resurgence of traditional return migration patterns that characterized Mexican migrants in the past appears unlikely; in fact, such trends may have changed for good.