Abstract
Researchers in the United States and Mexico have variously asserted that return migration from the United States to Mexico increased substantially, remained unchanged, or declined slightly in response to the 2008–2009 U.S. recession and fall 2008 global financial crisis. The present study addresses this debate using microdata from 2005 through 2009 from a large-scale, quarterly Mexican household survey, the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), after first validating the ENOE against return-migration estimates from a specialist demographic survey, the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). Declines in annual return-migration flows of up to a third between 2007 and 2009 were seen among the predominantly labor-migrant groups of male migrants and all 18- to 40-year-old migrants with less than a college education; and a decline in total return migration was seen in the fourth quarter of 2008 (immediately after the triggering of the global financial crisis) compared with the fourth quarter of 2007.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For more discussion on the differences between the Camarota and Jensenius and Passel and Cohn estimates, see Rendall et al. (2010).
References
Alarcón, R., Cruz, R., Díaz-Bautista, A., González-König, G., Izquierdo, A., Yrizar, G., et al. (2008). La crisis financiera en Estados Unidos y su impacto en la migración Mexicana [The U.S. financial crisis and its impact on Mexican migration]. Tijuana, Mexico: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Retrieved from http://www.colef.mx/coyuntura/crisisfinanciera.pdf
Bean, F. D., Corona, R., Tuirán, R., & Woodrow-Lafield, K. A. (1998). The quantification of migration between Mexico and the United States. In Migration between Mexico and the United States: Binational study, (vol. 1). Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.
Bustamante, J. A. (2009, March 3). Desde la frontera norte: Crecerá el retorno [From the north border: Increases in returns]. Reforma.
Camarota, S. A., & Jensenius, K. (2009). A shifting tide: Recent trends in the illegal immigrant population (Backgrounder). Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies. Retrieved from http://www.cis.org/articles/2009/shiftingtide.pdf
Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO). (2009). Encuesta sobre migración en la frontera norte de México (EMIF) [Survey of migration at the northern border of Mexico]. Mexico City, Mexico: CONAPO. Retrieved from http://www.conapo.gob.mx
Dustmann, C. (1996). Return migration: The European experience. Economic Policy, 22, 214–250.
Fernández-Huertas Moraga, J. (2011). New evidence on emigrant selection. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93, 72–96.
Fix, M., Papademetriou, D. G., Batalova, J., Terrazas, A., Lin, S. Y., & Mittelstadt, M. (2009). Migration and the global recession. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/MPI-BBCreport-Sept09.pdf
Hall, R. E. (2010). Economic fluctuations and growth. NBER Reporter, 2010(1), 1–7. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/reporter/2010number1/2010no1.pdf
Hill, K., & Wong, R. (2005). Mexico-U.S. migration: Views from both sides of the border. Population and Development Review, 31, 1–18.
Hollifield, J. F. (1994). Immigration and republicanism in France: The hidden consensus. In W. Cornelius, P. L. Martin, & J. F. Hollifield (Eds.), Controlling immigration: A global perspective (pp. 143–175). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ibarraran, P., & Lubotsky, D. (2007). Mexican immigration and self-selection: New evidence from the 2000 Mexican census. In G. Borjas (Ed.), Mexican immigration to the United States (pp. 159–192). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Geografía (INEGI). (2005). Encuesta Nacional de Ocupacion y Empleo 2005—Una nueva encuesta para México [National Survey of Occupation and Employment—A new survey for Mexico]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. Retrieved from http://www.inegi.org.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/metodologias/encuestas/hogares/sm_enoe.pdf
Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Geografía (INEGI). (2009a). Información sobre el flujo migratorio internacional de México [Information on Mexico’s international migration flows]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. Retrieved from http://www.inegi.gob.mx/inegi/contenidos/espanol/prensa/Boletines/Boletin/Comunicados/Especiales/2009/junio/comunica1.pdf
Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Geografía (INEGI). (2009b). Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica 2006—Diseno muestral [National Survey of Demographic Dynamics—Sample design]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. Retrieved from http://www.conapo.gob.mx/encuesta/Enadid2006/docs/D_muestral.pdf
Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Geografía (INEGI). (2009c). En el 2009 se rompe el patrón estacional de la emigración en México [Breaking of the pattern of seasonal emigration in 2009]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. http://www.inegi.org.mx/inegi/contenidos/espanol/prensa/comunicados/migracion09.asp
Instituto Nacional de Estatística y Geografía (INEGI). (2010). Encuesta Nacional de la Dinamica Demografica [National Survey of Demographic Dynamics]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: INEGI. Retrieved from http://www.inegi.org.mx
Johnson, D., & Lichter, D. (2009). Growing diversity in America’s children and youth: Spatial and temporal dimensions. Population and Development Review, 36, 151–176.
Jonsson, S. H., & Rendall, M. S. (2004). The fertility contribution of Mexican immigration to the United States. Demography, 41, 129–150.
Lindstrom, D. P. (1996). Economic opportunity in Mexico and return migration from the United States. Demography, 33, 357–374.
Marcelli, E., & Cornelius, W. (2001). The changing profile of Mexican migrants to the U.S: New evidence from California and Mexico. Latin American Research Review, 36, 105–131.
Martin, P. (2009). Recession and migration: A new era for labor migration? International Migration Review, 43, 671–691.
Massey, D. S., & Zenteno, R. (2000). A validation of the ethnosurvey: The case of Mexico-U.S. migration. International Migration Review, 34, 766–793.
Massey, D. S., Durand, J., & Malone, N. J. (2002). Beyond smoke and mirrors. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Massey, D. S., Pren, K. A., & Durand, J. (2009). Nuevos escenarios de la migración México-Estados Unidos. Las consecuencias de la guerra antiinmigrante [New scenarios of Mexico-U.S. migration: Consequences of the war against immigrants]. Papeles de Población, 61, 101–128.
Passel, J. S., & Cohn, D. (2009). Mexican immigrants: How many come? How many leave? Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Retrieved from http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=112
Portes, A., & Bach, R. L. (1985). Latin journey. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rendall, M. S., Brownell, P., & Kups, S. (2010). Declining return migration from the United States to Mexico in the late-2000s recession (Labor and Population Program Working Paper WR-720-1). Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR720-1
Reyes, B. I. (2001). Immigrant trip duration: The case of immigrants from western Mexico. International Migration Review, 35, 1185–1204.
Reyes, B. I. (2004). Changes in trip duration for Mexican immigrants to the United States. Population Research and Policy Review, 23, 235–257.
Riosmena, F. (2004). Return versus settlement among undocumented Mexican migrants, 1980 to 1996. In J. Durand & D. S. Massey (Eds.), Crossing the border: research from the Mexican Migration Project (pp. 265–280). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2009a). Changes to the American Community Survey between 2007 and 2008 and their potential effect on the estimates of Hispanic origin type, nativity, race, and language. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hispanic/acs08researchnote.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau. (2009b). Table C05006. Place of Birth for the Foreign-born Population Excluding Population Born at Sea. (Estimate based on the 2008 American Community Survey.) Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/acs/www
Van Hook, J., & Zhang, W. (2011). Who stays? Who goes? Selective emigration among the foreign-born. Population Research and Policy Review, 30, 1–24. doi:10.1007/s11113-010-9183-0
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge support from the National Institute of Aging under investigator grant R21AG030170, and from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant R24-HD050906. We thank the discussants and participants of the September 2009 Conference on Ibo-American Migration in the Context of the Global Financial Crisis, Fox Center, Guanajuato, Mexico, and of the April 2010 Population Association of America session at which earlier versions of this paper were presented. We also thank Eduardo Sojo, Scott Borger, and three anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rendall, M.S., Brownell, P. & Kups, S. Declining Return Migration From the United States to Mexico in the Late-2000s Recession: A Research Note. Demography 48, 1049–1058 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-011-0049-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-011-0049-9