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THE GREAT MEXICAN EMIGRATION Gordon H THE GREAT MEXICAN EMIGRATION Gordon H. Hanson and Craig McIntosh* Abstract—In this paper, we examine net emigration from Mexico over the ing the results difficult to generalize to the country as a period 1960 to 2000. The data are consistent with labor supply shocks having made a substantial contribution to Mexican emigration, accounting whole. for two-fifths of Mexican labor flows to the United States over the last two In this paper, we examine net emigration from Mexico decades of the twentieth century. Net emigration rates by Mexican state from 1960 to 2000. To measure net labor outflows, we birth year cohort display a strong positive correlation with the initial size of the Mexican cohort relative to the corresponding U.S. cohort. In states compare the size of birth cohorts in Mexican states between with long histories of emigration, the effects of cohort size on emigration decennial censuses. By taking state birth cohorts as the unit are relatively strong, consistent with the existence of preexisting networks. of analysis, we ignore how migration varies with schooling, income, or other individual characteristics, on which previ- ous literature dwells. The advantage of our approach is that 1. Introduction we can study emigration across regions within Mexico over N the past two and a half decades, migration from long time periods that have seen large changes in labor IMexico to the United States has surged. As a share of market conditions in the country relative to the United Mexico’s national population, the number of Mexican im- States. migrants living in the United States remained at 1.5% from One seemingly obvious explanation for labor outflows 1960 to 1970, before rising to 3.3% in 1980, 5.2% in 1990, from Mexico, which to date has received little attention in and 10.2% in 2005. Mexico is by far and away the largest the literature, is that labor supply in Mexico has grown source country for U.S. immigration, accounting for one- relative to the United States, putting downward pressure on third of the current U.S. foreign-born population. relative wages and making emigration more attractive.2 Mexico-to-U.S. labor flows are a major policy issue for Figure 1 shows that the U.S. baby boom matched rapid both countries. The United States spends large sums on population growth in Mexico between 1940 and 1960. enforcing borders against illegal immigration. In Mexico, Subsequently, Mexican birth cohorts continued to grow for the exodus of labor has reduced the population of working- another two decades, while the size of U.S. birth cohorts age adults (Hanson, 2006), while creating a financial wind- began to fall. Between 1960 and 1980, there was a large fall in the form of remittances (Woodruff & Zenteno, 2006). shift in the relative size of U.S.-Mexican cohorts, from 4:1 Given the importance of migration for labor markets in to less than 2:1. Given that birth cohorts enter the labor North America, it is surprising that little academic research market with a fifteen- to twenty-year lag, the labor supply has examined the scale of regional labor flows. Existing effects should have triggered emigration from Mexico be- literature provides scant analysis of why—despite long- ginning in the late 1970s, consistent with observed patterns. standing income differences between Mexico and the The focus of our analysis is to assess the contribution of United States—labor outflows from Mexico have grown relative labor supply shocks over the past four decades to dramatically only recently. Mexico’s great wave of emigration. There is work on other aspects of Mexican emigration, Clearly factors besides labor supply affect Mexican labor including how labor flows affect U.S. and Mexican wages outflows. Since 1980, Mexico has been beset periodically (Mishra, 2006; Borjas & Katz, 2007; Aydemir & Borjas, by financial crises. Its per capita GDP fell sharply in 1983 2007), the self-selection of emigrants (Chiquiar & Hanson, (after the onset of the Mexican debt crisis) and again in 2005; Ibarraran & Lubotsky, 2007; Fernandez-Huertas, 1995 (after the Mexican peso crisis), leaving the difference 2008), and the assimilation of immigrants in the United in Mexico-U.S. per capita income in 2005 little changed States (Borjas, 1996; Grogger & Trejo, 2002; Smith, 2003; relative to two and a half decades before (table 1). Previous Blau & Kahn, 2007).1 Although there is research on indi- work finds that Mexico-to-U.S. migration increases follow- vidual migration decisions (Taylor, 1987; Massey & Espi- ing real wage declines (Hanson & Spilimbergo, 1999; Or- nosa, 1997; Orrenius & Zavodny, 2005; McKenzie & Rap- renius & Zavodny, 2005). U.S. immigration policy and oport, 2007), much of this work uses data from Mexican migrant networks also affect migration. Illegal immigrants communities chosen for having high migration rates, mak- appear to account for most new arrivals from Mexico in the United States. With the buildup in U.S. border enforcement Received for publication February 7, 2008. Revision accepted for since 1990, the fees that smugglers charge migrants at the publication October 20, 2008. * Hanson: University of California, San Diego, and NBER; McIntosh: border have risen (Gathmann, 2004). At the same time, University of California, San Diego. expanding migrant networks have made moving abroad We thank seminar participants at Columbia University, Princeton Uni- more attractive (Munshi, 2003; Orrenius & Zavodny, 2005). versity, and UCSD for valuable advice and Jeffrey Lin for excellent research assistance. 1 See Hanson (2006) for a review of literature on Mexico-U.S. migration 2 There is cross-country evidence on the relationship between demo- and Massey and Zenteno (1999) for work on migration dynamics using the graphic structure and international migration. See Hatton and Williamson Mexican Migration Project data. (2003, 2005). The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2010, 92(4): 798–810 © 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00031 by guest on 28 September 2021 THE GREAT MEXICAN EMIGRATION 799 FIGURE 1.—LABOR SUPPLY,UNITED STATES VERSUS MEXICO (1910 ϭ 1) do in section 5, recent rapid declines in Mexican fertility should diminish binational differences in labor supply growth as a motivation for emigration from Mexico. The 5 total fertility rate in Mexico was 7 in 1965; it plummeted over the next several decades, dropping to 2.5 by 2000, 4 close to the U.S. level of 2.1 (Tuiran et al., 2002). Holding other factors constant, the dramatic decline in Mexico’s 3 population growth implies that emigration rates from Mex- ico should peak with the 1980 birth cohort and decline for 2 successive birth cohorts, such that those born in 2010 would have emigration rates less than half as large as those born in 1 1980. 0 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 II. Data Bi r t h year USnative born MX To calculate labor outflows from Mexico, we use the net migration method, which takes Mexican state, gender, and birth year cohorts as the unit of analysis and apply it to data from Mexico’s population census in 1960, 1970, 1990, and In the presence of network effects, migration may be self- 2000.3 We begin by identifying the base size for a cohort, reinforcing (Carrington, Detragiache, & Viswanath, 1996). which is the population the first time a cohort is observed in Our empirical framework attempts to control for how these the census. For example, we can count the number of boys other shocks have affected Mexican emigration. born in the state of Zacatecas aged 8 who appear in the 1960 In section 2, we present data on net labor outflows. In Mexican census. By then observing how many men born in section 3, we outline a simple dynamic model of emigration Zacatecas are age 18 in the 1970 census, age 38 in the 1990 that yields an estimating equation specifying the current census, and age 48 in the 2000 census, we are able to emigration rate for a cohort in Mexico as a function of construct a series of ten-year emigration rates that are initial differences in Mexico-U.S. labor supply, plus other specific to gender, age, state of birth, and year of birth. For controls. The model allows migration networks and internal birth year i, gender j, and birth state s, the fraction of migration within Mexico. In section 4, we present estima- individuals that has emigrated as of time t is, tion results in which we control the initial level of devel- opment in Mexican states, subsequent shocks to GDP, base cohort sizeijs Ϫ current cohort sizeijst migration costs, and other factors. mijst ϭ . (1) To preview the findings, the data are consistent with labor base cohort sizeijs supply shocks having made a substantial contribution to The ten-year time difference in m is the decadal emigra- Mexican emigration to the United States. Our estimates ijst tion rate.4 In the regression analysis, we exclude cohorts indicate that Mexican population growth can account for two-fifths of total out-migration for the twenty years prior to 3 Data are from http://www.ipums.umn.edu. The 1980 census was con- 1997. Initial cohort size in Mexico (relative to the United ducted but never made available. States) has a strong, positive correlation with net emigration 4 Wherever possible, the base cohort size is taken from a cohort between rates by Mexican state. The effects of cohort size are the ages of 1 and 10. However, in the case of cohorts born before 1950 or between 1970 and 1980, we have no census that lets us measure this strongest in states with long histories of migration, consis- quantity, and so we use instead the population at the time the cohort first tent with network effects.
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